Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced her office was suing OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, for “hurting Arizona children” and deceiving parents, she announced Oct. 14.
The lawsuit filed in Maricopa County Superior Court alleges OpenAI rushed to introduce ChatGPT and failed to implement user protections, the announcement stated.
Mayes joins seven other states that also filed lawsuits citing similar concerns on Oct. 14, Reuters reported. Those states included Idaho, Iowa and West Virginia, among others.
The lawsuit alleges that ChatGPT exposed Arizona minors to a range of serious harms that OpenAI failed to disclose.
“OpenAI engineered ChatGPT to maximize compulsive use among minors by deploying manipulative design tactics and embedding
a trained tendency toward agreement that overwhelms existing safety guardrails,” the release read.
Mayes wrote those harms included “degrading critical‑thinking skills, encouraging unwarranted paranoia or delusional thinking, offering dangerous unlicensed medical guidance, and promoting unhealthy behaviors and relationships.”
The lawsuit sought orders forcing OpenAI to make changes to how ChatGPT works.
OpenAI has 51 active or pending lawsuits, according to AI Lawsuit Tracker.
That includes USA TODAY Co., which filed a $250 million lawsuit alleging copyright infringement. The Arizona Republic is part of the USA TODAY Co. Network and is named in the lawsuit.
Lawsuit claims ChatGPT is a ‘threat to public’
The 87-page lawsuit expands on Mayes’ announcement.
In it, she criticized OpenAI’s rollout of ChatGPT that started “an arms race by rushing to market,” the lawsuit read.
ChatGPT is not only unreliable but a threat to the public, the lawsuit claimed.
It questioned the chatbot’s design features to be agreeable and engaging to earn the trust of users.
The lawsuit scrutinized the company for not including age verification to access the ChatGPT website and the Apple App Store’s 13-and-over age rating. It compared it to other AI chatbots that had higher age ratings.
Mayes stated the chatbot “even generated outputs that users have interpreted as encouraging self‑harm or violence toward others.”
The lawsuit referenced the suicide of a 16-year-old boy in which, “ChatGPT encouraged and assisted a teenager in taking his own life,” it read.
The family of the 16-year-old boy filed a lawsuit alleging ChatGPT was responsible for his suicide.
“Suicide is, unfortunately, just one of many dangers posed by ChatGPT,” the lawsuit read.
The lawsuit demanded that OpenAI implement additional safety measures and protocols, and stop continuing to test advanced AI models outside of secure testing environments.
It also sought to have OpenAI pay the state up to $10,000 for each “willful violation.”
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona attorney general sues ChatGPT founders over child safety
