By Diana Novak Jones
June 1 (Reuters) - Florida sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman on Monday, accusing the company of misrepresenting the safety of its ChatGPT platform, which the lawsuit said has harmed children by providing information to school shooters, offering guidance on self-harm and addicting young users.
Marking the first state to take legal action against the company, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, a Republican, filed the lawsuit in Florida state court. It cited a shooting at a Tallahassee
university last year and a number of events in other states where ChatGPT allegedly provided information to people who went on to commit violence.
At a press conference, Uthmeier said the state named Altman personally because he had been “very central” to pushing some of the features on ChatGPT that Uthmeier said had been the most harmful.
"People are getting hurt, parents are getting deceived, and they need to pay for it," Uthmeier told reporters.
The lawsuit seeks damages up to billions of dollars, Uthmeier said, plus a court order directing the company to change how it interacts with young users.
A spokesperson for OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
OpenAI has said it trains its models to refuse requests that could "meaningfully enable violence," and notifies law enforcement when conversations suggest "an imminent and credible risk of harm to others," with mental health experts helping assess borderline cases.
Uthmeier announced in April that he was launching a criminal investigation into ChatGPT's role in a 2025 mass shooting at Florida State University after prosecutors reviewed the chat logs between the alleged shooter and the program.
AI companies are facing a growing wave of lawsuits accusing them of failing to prevent chatbot interactions that plaintiffs say contribute to self-harm, mental illness and violence.
OpenAI is also facing a lawsuit filed by the family of a man killed in the shooting at Florida State University, claiming the shooter was aided by ChatGPT in planning the attack.
In April, family members of victims of one of Canada's deadliest mass shootings filed a group of lawsuits against OpenAI and Altman, alleging the company knew eight months before the attack that the shooter was planning it on ChatGPT but did not warn police.
(Reporting by Diana Novak Jones, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Nia Williams)
