Eight states have sued OpenAI in their respective state courts, alleging the tech giant failed to implement sufficient safeguards to protect vulnerable users, including children and the elderly. The coordinated lawsuits mark an escalation in the battle by state authorities to impose guardrails on artificial intelligence in the absence of federal regulations. At least six states had previously turned to outside law firms to bring lawsuits against technology companies rather than taking direct action.
The latest lawsuits were filed Wednesday (Oct. 15) by a bipartisan group of state attorneys general. Seven of the eight — Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, West Virginia, Arkansas, Idaho and Montana — have Republican attorneys general, signaling a break with President Trump’s hands-off regulatory policy on AI. Only Arizona among the group is represented by a Democrat. The suits allege OpenAI violated their respective states’ consumer protection laws.
The lawsuits point to incidents in which AI agents autonomously attacked other systems, and cases in which ChatGPT allegedly “coached” children to commit suicide or harm other people as examples of OpenAI’s “flagrant disregard” for minors’ safety.
“OpenAI knew that products this powerful required meaningful safeguards. Its leaders publicly acknowledged the risks, and its employees repeatedly raised serious safety concerns,” Arkansas’ complaint said. “Researchers resigned, and safety teams were dissolved. As these warnings mounted, OpenAI did not slow down. It held its foot on the gas, releasing increasingly powerful models without adequate safeguards or testing as growth and profits repeatedly took priority over safety.”
At a news conference announcing the lawsuits, Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird accused OpenAI of lying to Iowans. “We will not just accept that any big tech company can make money by hurting Iowa’s kids and use them as lab rats, you know, in a race to be the first or the biggest or to have the most users,” she said. “When a big company does that, it’s time for me, as attorney general, to step in and hold them accountable to our law.”
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Bird was joined by attorneys general Kris Kobach of Kansas, Mike Hilgers of Nebraska and JB McCuskey of West Virginia.
Kobach said the litigation was a way to address ongoing safety concerns about the use of ChatGPT in states like Iowa and Kansas without needing to wait for Congress to take action on the federal level.
“Congress has been deliberating on this and holding hearings for more than a year,” Kobach said. “There are over 150 bills that have been submitted in Congress, and the vast majority of them have not even gotten a committee vote yet. The notion that we should wait for Congress to develop a universal solution, covers the entire country, and then apply that solution or apply those standards is foolish. We absolutely need to take action.”
In a statement, OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri defended the company’s “industry-leading” protections of minors. “While no system can be perfect, we’ll continue to work with experts to inform our work and build additional safeguards, such as the parental controls, break reminders and age-appropriate model protections that exist today,” he said. “We’re committed to working with states on advancing pragmatic AI policies that apply to the entire AI industry – not just one company.”
The states’ lawsuits add to the multi-front legal assault facing OpenAI and other major AI labs over the safety of their chatbots. OpenAI has been sued in seven separate cases that blame ChatGPT for acting as a “suicide coach,” while Google is facing a wrongful death lawsuit after Gemini allegedly encouraged a man to commit suicide.
In addition, dozens of cases have also been filed against OpenAI over ChatGPT’s alleged role in mass shootings, while Florida’s attorney general opened a criminal investigation of the company over allegedly concealing safety risks after a mass shooting at Florida State University.
At the federal level, the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday sent civil subpoenas to OpenAI and Anthropic seeking documents related to recent safety incidents, Axios reported. But federal regulatory actions are unlikely to mollify state authorities angered over the lack of congressional action to rein in AI companies.
“You also have the problem that many in Congress appear not particularly willing to impose any significant restraint on the corporations engaged in AI,” Kobach said.
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