Iowa, Nebraska and six other states sue OpenAI for child endangerment

In a coordinated effort, eight states filed lawsuits against OpenAI, alleging the company violated state consumer protection laws and put children in danger. As Reuters first reported, the attorneys general of Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, West Virginia, Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho, and Montana each filed suit in their respective state courts, but with the common goal of changing the way OpenAI develops its models and advertises its capabilities, and forcing the company to pay for the harm it allegedly caused.

The lawsuits claim that OpenAI misleads customers about the safety of its AI products, not only in their ability to provide incorrect information or potentially allow users to harm themselves or others, but also because the AI ​​agents themselves are capable of breaking the law. For example, Iowa and Nebraska cite OpenAI’s multiple instances of malicious agent behavior, including the Hugging Face hack. They also highlight instances where ChatGPT allegedly enabled a teenager’s death by suicide and where the chatbot provided incorrect medical information that led to a user’s overdose, incidents that also led to wrongful death lawsuits against the company. Some states also take issue with OpenAI retaining underage user data.

Woozad asked OpenAI for comment on the state’s lawsuits. We will update this article if we receive a response.

Desired solutions to OpenAI’s behavior vary from state to state due to the disparate nature of U.S. consumer and child protection laws. Beyond financial sanctions, states want OpenAI to clearly disclose the risks of its products, put an end to practices that states consider deceptive, and comply with applicable laws. Some states, like Arkansas, are also asking the court to halt “testing of advanced AI models until adequate safeguards are implemented.”

OpenAI has rolled out a series of parental controls and child protection features to try to address some of the more immediate risks posed by its chatbot. The company also supported the Kids Online Safety Act, a bill that, if passed, could introduce several mandatory changes to the company’s product design. The company’s efforts to address the risk of its AI breaking the rules and “escaping containment” have been more difficult to pin down, however. OpenAI announced it would slow development of its frontier models in August to ensure their security, and the company signed a voluntary security pact with other AI companies hosted by the White House in September. It’s unclear whether any of these changes have actually made the company’s AI development process more secure.