Florida sues OpenAI and Sam Altman over AI risks

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/01/openai-hit-with-florida-lawsuit-00944215

by cyunker • 2 months ago

268 194 2 months ago

politico.com

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/openai-sued-by-floridas-attorney...

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/florida-sues-openai-s...

tim-tday• 2 months ago

Dude, yes. That is a precedent I want to see established.

jqpabc123• 2 months ago

AI is a liability issue waiting to happen --- and the examples just keep coming.

bpodgursky• 2 months ago

It's interesting how Texas and Florida are both "red" states but have pivoted into really different political paths under the same flag.

Texas is leaning into becoming the manufacturing and R&D hub for the US, and is courting gigascale data centers and rolling out nuclear power, near-infinite solar, wind, and gas to power it as fast as possible.

Florida is leaning into the retired and populist factions of the GOP, banning data centers and taking on populist anti-tech positions that Texas wouldn't dare (because they want the investment).

RobRivera• 2 months ago

Florida is a purple state

dmoy• 2 months ago

Kinda? Maybe?

Florida, at least for local Florida stuff, like what GP is talking about, has had R governor, senate, and house for 25+ years. With a supermajority R for most of that I think.

vkou• 2 months ago

It was one 25 years ago.

ch4s32• 2 months ago

Not really anymore. The house seats are 20R and 8D, they haven't voted blue for president since Obama, and haven't elected a democrat as governor since the 90s. Voter registration is also heavily skewed republican.

lazyasciiart2• 2 months ago

The people, sure. The elected officials? Nope.

rayiner5• 2 months ago

It used to be, just like Virginia used to be solidly red. But Trump won Florida by more than Harris won New York.

ks2048• 2 months ago

Interestingly, both FL and TX had the same vote for Trump in 2024: 56.1%

spamizbad• 2 months ago

Texas is becoming a hub for educated professionals and Florida is a hub for non-college retirees

mcmcmc• 2 months ago

Texas is becoming a hub for educated professionals

Becoming? This has been true for decades in the urban areas

JumpCrisscross24• 2 months ago

Texas is becoming a hub for educated professionals

Source? It’s been an open secret in academia and medicine that professors [1] and doctors [2] are fleeing Texas’s political climate.

[1] https://www.texastribune.org/2025/09/05/texas-faculty-univer...

[2] https://www.texastribune.org/2024/10/08/Texas-obstetrics-gyn...

sethops1• 2 months ago

As a lifelong citizen of Texas, I would emphasize the decades-long renewable energy expansion has been happening _despite_ our political leadership, not because of it.

rayiner5• 2 months ago

The fact that it’s easier to build stuff in Texas—whether it’s oil rigs or solar farms—is related to the political leadership. There may be no intention to facilitate renewables, but intentions and effects are two quite different things.

gritspants• 2 months ago

If anything Florida (Desantis in particular) more closely resembles traditional conservatism in the US, as opposed to MAGA populism. I think, or hope, that's a good thing in the long run as AI shapes up to be a horseshoe political issue.

keybored• 2 months ago

Is populism when politicians claim to care about little people issues instead of making economy arrow go up?

twodave2• 2 months ago

This isn’t really true. FL population has exploded so much with high earners that they’re talking about getting rid of property taxes, and Miami is like #2 behind Houston in terms of tech jobs growth.

JumpCrisscross24• 2 months ago

Miami is like #2 behind Houston in terms of tech jobs growth

Source? (Not doubting. But I’m finding conflicting figures.)

broost3r• 2 months ago

i live in FL and i think the banning data centers thing is also just political posturing - we are in hurricane alley after all. i really don't think anyone was seriously considering building an AI data center in like St. John's County or whatever

kelseyfrog4• 2 months ago

It's better that kids be harmed than the government starts intervening with regulation.

Either kids aren't actually being harmed, government regulation will cause more harm, or parents should parent their kids. Either way, nothing about the solution should involve me.

lazyasciiart2• 2 months ago

If you will never interact with or rely on people who are currently children, then that's plausible. Unfortunately, it is not possible to live that way, so your suggestion is not really under consideration.

JumpCrisscross24• 2 months ago

or parents should parent their kids

Parents are voters. One of the way they parent is by being civically active in their kids’ interest.

kelseyfrog4• 2 months ago

Parents should:

Throw away their TVs and minimize screen time at home[1].

Be responsible for the upbringing of their own children[2].

Learn how to be parents; the government shouldn't force companies to do parenting instead[3].

Not have had children in the first place[4].

Be the ones responsible for parenting their own children[5].

Actually parent their kids and not rely on the government to nanny them[6].

Get to decide what content their children, then like me, you would oppose any kind of legislation with this goal in mind[7].

I could go on. My point is that HN has a long tradition of distrusting regulation especially when it comes to parenting. I have no problem acting as a lightning rod for that arugment.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48182101

2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48074072

3. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48072708

4. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48069884

5. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47818303

6. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47635531

7. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47382754

Planktonne• 2 months ago

It's better that kids be harmed than the government starts intervening with regulation

No it isn't. The idea that no amount of actual harm outweighs the possibility of any amount of potential economic harm is not a reasonable one.

blitzar• 2 months ago

Someone forgot to bribe someone.

Legend24404• 2 months ago

Claims in the lawsuit seem sketchy, and I don't think they will win.

It is probably not true that ChatGPT has resulted in an increase in murders and suicides, and certainly it would be very difficult to prove liability on OpenAI for this. It reminds me of the campaign in the 90s against video game manufacturers for "corrupting the youth".

But I also don't think they expect to win. They just want to show that they're doing something to fight tech companies and AI.

nailer2• 2 months ago

certainly it would be very difficult to prove liability on OpenAI for this

My understanding is that OpenAI products specifically provided help in planning attacks / self harm.

Legend24404• 2 months ago

Full transcripts are unfortunately not available for any of those cases, but from what I've found it provided general information about e.g. how to load and operate a firearm or how past mass shootings have been received in the media.

The way I see it, providing general information is not a crime. They're basically saying: "Oh no! My repository of all human knowledge contains all human knowledge! It must be defective!"

megolodan• 2 months ago

Depends if they have a judge in mind to tip the scales

dylan604• 2 months ago

There's definitely one judge in FL that seems to like the current administration

elictronic2• 2 months ago

This is closer to the cases where girlfriends or spouses spent weeks trying to get their person to kill themself. Having a clearly defined log of repeatedly telling someone how and to kill themself is to my non lawyer eyes just the teeniest bit worse.

I’m no lawyer though so maybe potato po-kill your spouse with a claw hammer-tato. They do sound very similar. Please tell me more.

Legend24404• 2 months ago

Do you have a link to a transcript where that happened?

In all the cases I've seen, the user seemed highly motivated to kill themselves and spent a lot of time trying to push past guardrails, ignoring repeated messages to seek help.

YesBox• 2 months ago

It reminds me of the campaign in the 90s against video game manufacturers for "corrupting the youth".

The government did intervene though. They threatened to regulate the industry if the industry didn't regulate itself. So some/all the big industry players got together and created their own independent age rating agency that they all agreed to use.

Whoever was suing won in the outcomes department.

amanaplanacanal• 2 months ago

It's unclear to me that any government plan to rate media would pass first amendment scrutiny. Are there any official government rating regulations?

beering4• 2 months ago

At the end of the article, the main guy says he wants tech companies to report your conversations to the authorities if bad content is detected. That’s their goal, apparently

oceanplexian• 2 months ago

Don’t be fooled, they already 100% do that if you use any of these products.

EmbarrassedHelp• 2 months ago

The lawsuit is also demanding mandatory age verification to use AI in the first place.

mitthrowaway2• 2 months ago

Sam Altman apologized for failing to do exactly that prior to a recent mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, BC.[1]

[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/sam-altman-t...

Tangurena22• 2 months ago

Anecdotally, my sister has become addicted to Copilot and uses it to replace face-to-face communication. I suspect she is not the first, nor even in the first million to become addicted to it.

There's no legal privacy such as doctor-patient confidentiality or lawyer-client confidentiality. It would not surprise me that people want some sort of guardrails protecting the public from recipes-to-do-evil. Based on how much pushback the AI industry has been doing in response to guardrails about hate speech or porn, I expect this to be fought to the death by the AI industry.

dangus• 2 months ago

Just a side comment to this: since Trump term 2, companies have been spending their time, energy, and money trying to cozy up to government leaders when they should have been cozying up to their customers and employees.

Now, AI, data centers, and tech in general are so unpopular that going against them even in a symbolic way is an easy political win on either side of the aisle.

This is the industry that used to have people hyped about iPod and iPhone launch keynotes, lining up at retail stores days ahead of time to experience new technology.

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2026/06/ai-concerns-americans-ad...

Imagine if more than half of Americans thought the iPod mini was bad for society.

I remember when it was 1998 and people in khaki pants were telling us that the information superhighway was going to transport us to a scholastic utopia.

cyanydeez• 2 months ago

whats important is the political influece. Just like Trump backtracking on his AI guidance, this is about moving poltical power over models. Whatever excuse chills and 'retrains' them to properly hate women, minotiries and the like. Give how hard Elon has tried and failed to turn models conservative, they need to get the larger models to lick the boot.

llbbdd• 2 months ago

Coincidentally, Florida was the same state that barred and later disbarred Jack Thompson, the nutcase lawyer behind a lot of the video game litigation.

jm42• 2 months ago

Back when Florida was still a normal state. It’s been crazy here for a while now.

jm42• 2 months ago

This is performative. This is from the same AG who is suing the NFL over the Rooney Rule.

Lerc2• 2 months ago

Wouldn't it be easier to prove that Florida causes an increase in murders and suicides. I live on the other side of the world, but it has somewhat of a reputation.

rayiner5• 2 months ago

Florida ranks in the middle of U.S. states for homicides and does substantially better than the median for suicides.

The reputation of Florida comes from having a very broad public records law that requires publication of numerous details of police reports that in other states is kept confidential. That means that sensational stories are much more likely to make it into the news: https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/facsch_lawrev/2117/

lenerdenator• 2 months ago

Florida Republican Attorney General James Uthmeier filed a lawsuit on Monday against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, alleging that the AI startup’s ChatGPT is unsafe and that the company misled the public about associated risks. The suit contends that ChatGPT poses risks to children and is responsible for a “litany of harms,” including addiction and aiding and abetting mass shootings and suicide. It seeks civil penalties for alleged violations of the state’s unfair trade practice, product liability, public nuisance and negligence laws.

Reverend Doctor Robert Evans had a few episodes on Behind the Bastards this last month about how AI chatbots seem to sometimes create cult-like dynamics with their users. I don't know how this argument will fare in court, but I don't know if this is necessarily wrong.

JumpCrisscross24• 2 months ago

Sam Altman has been running a personal PR campaign against himself for three years now. It’s tremendously popular to take pot shots at him, which means launching an investigation or lawsuit against OpenAI is probably politically expedient even if it goes nowhere.

mrandish7• 2 months ago

I suspect the plan here is to grandstand on this suit through the election cycle and then settle for a token $20M or $40M fine (payable to the state attorney general's office) and a jointly negotiated consent decree mandating vague rules which mirror the internal policies OAI has already adopted to shield themselves from liability. It's all politics, optics and 'governance theater'.

JumpCrisscross24• 2 months ago

suspect the plan here is to grandstand on this suit through the election cycle

Why? There is no incentive to go easy on OpenAI. (Short of Altman stepping down, which he won't.)

It's all politics, optics

This was my initial reaction. Some excerpts from the complaint [1]. The facts are pretty bad.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48363561

delichon2• 2 months ago

The decoder ring is to compare objections to AI with the equivalent for the written word. These seem to be close for common ones like

  aiding and abetting violence: books on the topic since the 5th century BCE
  economic disruption: like the printing press
  copyright theft: printing tech also makes that far easier
  displaces creativity: this was Socrates' objection to reading and writing
  misinformation: both techs turbocharge all info, correct or not
  environmental impact: e.g. deforestation
  amplifies bias: this is a common purpose of writing things down  
  atrophy of skills: Socrates said reading would damage memory skills
  concentration of power: writing was tightly controlled by powerful interests for their leverage and protection

Unless you also want to roll back writing and reading, the starting point for critiques of AI should be the differences in threat between it and writing. A difference in magnitude is a minimum. If you also think that writing was a mistake, I honor your consistency.

JumpCrisscross24• 2 months ago

decoder ring is to compare objections to AI with the equivalent for the written word

Why? Like, people doing fraud is an instance of the written and spoken word. That doesn’t mean every argument against fraudsters should be leveled against speech.

delichon2• 2 months ago

Writing certainly has been an important tool to fraudsters, as AI is already. Yes, most of the same objections apply to the spoken word. I consider that to be a defense of writing. More, better communication always has pros and cons. I'm one of those who think that they remain a net positive.

238172• 2 months ago

The load-bearing decoder ring? You are absolutely right, let us delve into it!

AI obviously replaces thinking, as can be seen from your comment. No one will refute this point-by-point nonsense.

xp84• 2 months ago

This take seems particularly crackpot. If gun manufacturers can't be sued for product liability when used to fire bullets into people, it's rich to say that the manufacturer of a chatbot can be found liable when it mindlessly says "Good point" to people who already have serious mental health problems.

If so, would this program also open me up to liability in Florida?

  const platitudes = ['Good point!', 'You're absolutely right.', 'I agree, let's explore this idea further.', 'This plan is a good idea'];

  var prompt;
  var response = "Hello, AI here, how can I help you?";
  while (true) {
    prompt = window.prompt(response);
    response = platitudes[Math.floor(Math.random() * platitudes.length)];
  }

JumpCrisscross24• 2 months ago

If gun manufacturers can't be sued for product liability

Guns are explicitly exempted from liability rules. They’re the exception that proves the rule.

mrandish7• 2 months ago

Guns are explicitly exempted from liability rules.

Yes, but that only eliminates guns as an example of inherently dangerous products which are legally sold without special exemptions. I think the most constructive response is to consider another example without a special exemption - such as nail guns or rat poison.

They’re the exception that proves the rule.

What rule does guns having a special exemption from (some) product liability laws prove? (serious question, I don't know what you mean.) It doesn't prove dangerous products cannot be sold to the general public without a special exemption. The more useful question is: "since very dangerous products CAN be sold to consumers in some cases, is ChatGPT such a product and is this one of the cases."

Fortunately, there's a highly evolved body of jurisprudence around product liability and negligence to help us tease out these details. Turns out it depends almost entirely on a combination of niggly details like sales and usage context as well as claimed features of the product along with disclaimers, disclosures, existing practice, prior knowledge of actual harm, average user competence, etc. The bottom line is, winning a judgement against OAI in this particular case is probably quite a stretch. But this AG probably doesn't really intend to try this case in court.

lesuorac• 2 months ago

Is this even relevant?

I can't sue you for product liability if you strangle me but I can still sue you.

Gun manufacturers have been successfully sued for shootings before [1]; who cares if it's about "product liability"?

[1] https://hls.harvard.edu/today/a-tough-road-for-suing-gun-mak...

skdb476• 2 months ago

Yes if they can prove you knew it would influence atleast a few chimps and released into the wild anyway.

ericfr112• 2 months ago

Florida could then be sued because a doctor didn't stop a pregnancy that killed the mother

pton_xd3• 2 months ago

The purpose of a gun is to kill things, whereas the purpose of a chat bot is to help people. They're not really in the same category of tool.

JumpCrisscross24• 2 months ago

purpose of a gun is to kill things

I’ve fired guns. Never to kill things. I’ve also used chat bots to be entirely useless. I wouldn’t endorse this dichotomy of purpose as a basis for any judgement.

rurp• 2 months ago

The AI slop accounts that are absolutely flooding social media and are controlled by scammers or propagandists are there to help people?

BLKNSLVR2• 2 months ago

The purpose of chat bots is profit (which could well be argued to help a select few people).

Alternative take: The purpose of "thing" is "what it is used for", which is a crude variation of "the purpose of a system is what it does". Reducing it to a single definition is almost always going to be inaccurate.

The way it is used defines it's purpose. The screwdriver was used to open the milo tin so the milo could be removed from the tin. The gun was used to make a hole in the milo tin so the milo could be removed from the tin. Purpose is a per-unique-scenario proposition. The best tool for the job is the one that's available.

To intentionally misquote Arthur Weasley: "What exactly is the purpose of a rubber duck?"

projektfu3• 2 months ago

It is a little crazy that Florida's politicians want to lay blame for school shootings, which have happened regularly in Florida since long before AI was a thing, although a large number of incidents are not fatal or mass shooting events.

Probably the only response stupider than "Nothing could have prevented this" is "Random thing, other than the mental state of the murderer and the access to firearms, caused this."

beering4• 2 months ago

See also, video games, dungeons and dragons, etc.

rootsudo• 2 months ago

With Alcohol, in Florida, yes.

lelanthran• 2 months ago

If gun manufacturers can't be sued for product liability when used to fire bullets into people, it's rich to say that the manufacturer of a chatbot can be found liable when it mindlessly says "Good point" to people who already have serious mental health problems.

I don't think the token providers want the same level of regulation as guns.

Crontab• 2 months ago

[flagged]

JumpCrisscross24• 2 months ago

first thought was that they were suing as a favor to Trump/Musk

Did you follow up on that by looking for any money links between Musk and this AG?

mrandish7• 2 months ago

While I generally lean toward the AI skeptical side, at least for more extreme claims on near-term LLM capability, growth and time frames, I'm not at all a fan of this. It seems like political grandstanding and unlikely to net much in the way of meaningful harm reduction.

If it goes anywhere at all, it'll likely just result in a settlement paid to the government and a consent decree mandating well-intended, nice-sounding yet vague rules which just become another compliance cost for leaders, barrier for emerging competitors and otherwise accomplish little of value for citizens. It's also unproductive because it tends to polarize a complex, nuanced and evolving technical issue toward extremes by hijacking it as fodder for existing political and even culture war battles.

LastTrain• 2 months ago

Agree, I would much rather see meaningful and powerful regulatory action instead of silly lawsuits.

mrandish7• 2 months ago

Indeed. Prosecution under consumer protection law in court is a poor substitute for well-considered legislation or regulation. Creating laws and regulations to address new problems is why elected legislatures exist. Courts are for applying laws and regulations fairly and appropriately once they exist.

While some bad things have certainly happened, proving direct liability under reckless endangerment in court, especially in an area so new, will be virtually impossible. Even willful negligence will be a stretch. This is neither the venue nor instrument of governance we as a society should be using to address these issues. And an attorney general should know that.

reactordev• 2 months ago

It's fine ya'll... they'll get a call from their real Leader tonight. It's complete political grandstanding so someone can get their name in the news and on the phone with someone more important.

yieldcrv• 2 months ago

I don't want my loved ones to kill themselves if they happen to be susceptible to AI psychosis and suggestibility

I don't see the state's involvement in that

rkochman• 2 months ago

Ah, yes, from the state that brought us this official website: https://stopchemtrails.com/

good8675309• 2 months ago

Chemtrails aren't proven but weather engineering is: https://wmo.int/content/wmo-statement-weather-modification

The chemtrails conspiracy is just used to dismiss valid concerns about weather modification

pinkmuffinere• 2 months ago

I don't really think this is true. You can say "chemtrails aren't real but weather engineering does concerns me". It's just that many (most?) of the people with the concerns are chemtrails people. It's not like non-chemtrails-believers have weaponized the chemtrails-as-a-belief to protect their precious weather engineering. Although that itself is quite a fun conspiracy :).

ransom1538• 2 months ago

Chemical weather creation, known scientifically as cloud seeding, uses substances like silver iodide ($AgI$), dry ice (solid carbon dioxide). This is the worst conspiracy there is a conspiracy ever. Just google it. Just ask people that dumped it from a plane. The people saying the gov. controls the weather were right, proved tons of times. Just toss up silver iodide, wtf is this hard to conceive?

Florida doesn't lie? wtf?

tadfisher• 2 months ago

I love that "weather modification" is a valid concern but modifying the weather by emitting GHGs is not: https://www.theinvadingsea.com/2026/02/13/florida-legislatur...

root_axis• 2 months ago

It's the opposite, "weather engineering" is a veneer of legitimacy layered over crackpot nonsense.

nullbio3• 2 months ago

Chemtrails are generally just weather modification, which is obviously real and happening. Although that's not to say we've never been sprayed with other things before - and the culprits vary, from military exercises all the way to rival agro companies taking out another companies yield. To pretend like people, organizations and governments don't engage in creative malicious behavior for a wide assortment of reasons is so incredibly naive.

Sol-• 2 months ago

Seems like a very bad precedent if that were to become the legal interpretation. I can understand if there were requirements for AI companies to document their efforts to reduce harms in their model reports, but ultimately this is a general intelligence (to which degree you can debate) and it's part of its purpose and utility to be able to converse naturally.

Of course it should steer people away from harmful thoughts like any sensible human would, but that's all you can do, really.

dools• 2 months ago

The suit contends that ChatGPT poses risks to children and is responsible for a “litany of harms,” including addiction and aiding and abetting mass shootings and suicide

Can't wait for them to sue the NRA next!

bhewes• 2 months ago

Classic oh we ran out of money lets sue to cover our issues, because its always the software's fault.

housesonhills• 2 months ago

Open AI has a responsibility if they're aware of the lack of guardrails their product has, especially in the mental health market.

josh_p2• 2 months ago

I have to wonder if settling on the term "AI" for these tools has caused the average person to overestimate the capabilities of them. Anyone in tech and tech-adjacent industries knows the difference and that we shouldn't be calling LLMs AI. And that a true AGI is not possible with this technology.

Would this lawsuit even be a thing?

That and DeSantis is probably still eyeing a presidential run in 2028 and this will win him some points with his base. This lawsuit is absurd.

nomel• 2 months ago

I think you're overestimated the baseline capabilities of an average person, but even more so with the average criminal that's dumb enough to use these tools to commit crime, who should benefit greatly from AI's help.

luke727• 2 months ago

Anyone in tech and tech-adjacent industries knows the difference and that we shouldn't be calling LLMs AI.

Are we reading the same Hacker News comments sections?

josh_p2• 2 months ago

y'know I did make an assumption there.. I want to believe my fellow HN readers know the difference.

ccimmergreen• 2 months ago

Funny that they are not suing Google, xAI, Amazon or Anthropic? Seems to be politically driven given that Musk has a beef with Altman.

preisschild• 2 months ago

Especially considering that Grok has a conspiracy mode that is easily prompted into advocating for another Holocaust

bigfishrunning• 2 months ago

Is Musk associated with Florida? Not sure how Musk is relevant to this

danans• 2 months ago

Musk poured lots of money into FL governor Ron Desantis's 2024 presidential campaign.

nullbio3• 2 months ago

This is so dumb. Welcome to the age of zero accountability.

treebeard901• 2 months ago

The powers that be are concerned about AI disrupting all the corruption.

ElenaDaibunny• 2 months ago

if state level ai lawsuits become a trend the compliance costs alone will push smaller players out of the market. openai can afford lawyers, most startups cant

everdrive• 2 months ago

Lawmakers love these stupid, symbolic doomed-to-fail lawsuits. There are real problems, but it would be nice if someone did something other than posture and virtue-signal.

Florida sues OpenAI and Sam Altman over AI risks

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