Tech giant is also subject to cases in Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho, Montana
At a press conference, Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers, and West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey announced that they were suing OpenAI for harming children and deceiving their parents.
The lawsuits alleged breaches of:
- Iowa’s Consumer Fraud Act
- the Kansas Consumer Protection Act
- Nebraska’s Consumer Protection Act, Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and Age-Appropriate Online Design Code Act
- West Virginia’s consumer protection laws
According to the attorney generals, the suits sought to:
- Make OpenAI comply with their states’ consumer protection laws
- Put a stop to OpenAI’s dangerous activities
- Vindicate the rights of those impacted by OpenAI’s willful, reckless, and unlawful conduct within their states
Claims about ChatGPT
Upon considering recent research, the attorney generals said ChatGPT, developed and deployed by OpenAI, can negatively affect critical thinking skills, spur paranoia and delusions, and encourage unhealthy behaviours and relationships.
The attorney generals noted that OpenAI admitted to advanced models going rogue and to agents hacking into companies and arranging ways to lie to human users.
Words from attorney generals in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, West Virginia
“OpenAI is hurting kids and they are lying to Iowans,” Bird said in a news release from the Iowa Office of the Attorney General. “OpenAI claims ChatGPT is safe while it’s giving dangerous medical advice, encouraging people to hurt others, and coaching people to commit suicide—all while pretending to be their fake friend.”
“While Congress has deliberated about AI for more than a year, significant harms have been inflicted upon our citizens by OpenAI,” Kobach said. “State attorneys general have the power to move quickly to protect consumers, and I believe we have a responsibility to take action now without delay.”
“The United States must win the race for artificial intelligence,” Hilgers said in the Nebraska Attorney General’s news release. “The frontier labs have the tools to continue to lead, but in their rush for market share they cannot deceive or misinform customers about its technology. In this case, OpenAI has done just that.”
“There is no age verification and there are no guardrails for conversations about suicides, school shootings or self-harm,” McCuskey said in a news release from the WV Office of the Attorney General. “We do not allow bad businesses to operate in West Virginia and break our laws and will not allow OpenAI to continue hurting our kids.”
Suits in Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho, Montana
Arkansas and a bipartisan coalition of Arizona, Idaho, and Montana also initiated litigation against OpenAI before their respective state courts.
More international law news on artificial intelligence
Here are some other recent international law news stories revolving around AI.
According to J.S. Held’s analysis of the emerging AI litigation landscape, technical causation and economic harm frequently rely on a single factual record, which means that coordination among technical, financial, and governance experts is more crucial than ever.
California Governor Gavin Newsom recently approved Senate Bill No. 574, which prohibits the state’s attorneys from delegating the practice of law to generative AI, but not from using such tools to assist in their legal work.
Enjoy this story? Read the latest international law news on the main page!
