Florida accuses OpenAI, Sam Altman of putting profit before safety

James Uthmeier filed a lawsuit on Monday against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, alleging that the company prioritized profit over safety, contributed to violence, and promoted a product it knew could harm users.

“The rise of OpenAI is attributable to a web of deceit and the exploitation of users (including Floridians), leveraging their data and safety to boost OpenAI’s market value at unacceptable costs,” according to the complaint, News.Az reports, citing NBC news.

Florida is the first state to sue OpenAI and Altman over design and safety.

The civil action, seeking penalties and a court order rather than criminal charges, said Uthmeier “seeks to hold Altman personally liable for the harm he has caused Floridians through his reckless and willful conduct as founder and CEO of OpenAI, including his utter disregard for the risk to human life caused by his firms’ conduct.” The action is separate from a criminal investigation into OpenAI that Uthmeier opened in late April, which remains ongoing.

The wide-ranging lawsuit accuses OpenAI of four counts of deceptive and unfair trade practices, two counts of negligence, two counts of violating product liability laws, and one count each of fraudulent misrepresentation and causing a public nuisance. The suit claims that OpenAI’s systems present a “great danger of addiction, cognitive decline, suicide, violence, and related harms” to users.

OpenAI did not immediately reply to a request for comment about Monday’s lawsuit.

OpenAI has maintained that it designs its systems with “safety at every step” and says that it has “safeguards in place to help people, especially teens, when conversations turn sensitive.”

“We continue improving ChatGPT’s training to recognize and respond to signs of mental or emotional distress, de-escalate conversations, and guide people toward real-world support,” the company says.

The complaint also points to the alleged use of ChatGPT in the planning of a mass shooting at Florida State University and the killing of two graduate students at the University of South Florida.

“Last year’s mass shooting at Florida State University was a tragedy, but ChatGPT is not responsible for this terrible crime,” OpenAI spokesman Drew Pusateri said in a statement to NBC News after the company was sued by the family of a victim of the shooting.

“In this case, ChatGPT provided factual responses to questions with information that could be found broadly across public sources on the internet, and it did not encourage or promote illegal or harmful activity,” he said.

The lawsuit adds to a growing list of legal efforts brought by governments as well as private citizens against OpenAI, many of which contain similar allegations that the company’s core offerings can have serious adverse effects on users.

OpenAI has been sued by the representatives of at least seven individuals who allege the company’s products caused users to commit suicide or develop harmful delusions.

OpenAI has also been sued by the families of several victims of February’s mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia. The victims’ families argue that OpenAI should have reported the suspect’s worrying ChatGPT use months earlier to law enforcement after the suspect’s gun-related interactions with ChatGPT raised alarms within OpenAI’s safety teams.

Altman apologized to the Tumbler Ridge community in late April, vowing to continue “working with all levels of government to help ensure something like this never happens again.”

Monday’s suit represents the latest salvo in Florida’s fight against AI companies, as Uthmeier and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have emerged as leading critics of America’s largest AI companies.

News.Az 

By Ulviyya Salmanli