Florida is accusing OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman of putting profit over safety, in the first lawsuit brought by a state against the ChatGPT maker over the alleged shortcomings of the chatbot.
The lawsuit, filed in Florida state court on Monday, claims the company and Altman failed to warn users that ChatGPT could be dangerous and instead marketed it as safe and reliable, including for children. It's the latest salvo in a growing effort across the country to hold artificial intelligence companies accountable when harms follow users' interactions with chatbots.
The lawsuit accuses OpenAI of aiding and abetting mass shooters, including a shooter at Florida State University who allegedly used ChatGPT to plan his attack, encouraging vulnerable people to commit suicide, and addicting children "to a tool that feigns human compassion to collect their data with no parental oversight."
"This litany of harms is driven by Defendants' insatiable quest to win the AI arms race and amass large fortunes, despite knowing the danger of ChatGPT," the complaint said. "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."
Florida is also seeking to hold Altman personally liable.
"Sam Altman and ChatGPT have chosen the AI race over the safety and security of our kids," Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said at a press conference on Monday. He added he believes that Altman and the company could be liable "for potentially up to billions of dollars" in penalties.
"Losing a child is the most devastating tragedy that can happen to a family and we know that no words can come close to addressing the pain of such a loss," OpenAI spokesperson Kayla Wood said in an emailed statement to NPR.
"AI is a new and powerful technology, and we believe minors need significant protection, which is why we have put in place industry leading protections and policies," the statement continued. "In particular we built safety for minors directly into our products, including a more protective experience specifically for minors, an age prediction tool, defaulting users whose age we are not confident into our more protective experience, and giving parents tools to monitor their kids' use of AI."
The lawsuit alleges OpenAI's safeguards, including its parental controls, are inadequate and that the company has created "a dangerous public nuisance."
The first page of the lawsuit begins with a screenshot from OpenAI's website saying ChatGPT was "built with safety in mind." The image is followed by a footnote reading: "Not so."
Uthmeier's office is separately conducting a criminal investigation into OpenAI over the FSU shooter's alleged consultation of ChatGPT ahead of the April 2025 attack.
More than 20 lawsuits have been filed against OpenAI over harms allegedly stemming from ChatGPT use, including by families of victims killed and injured in a mass shooting at a school in Tumbler Ridge, Canada, in February, the family of a victim killed in the FSU shooting, and the families of seven people, including one teenager, who died by suicide or suffered delusions after using the chatbot.
Altman apologized to the Tumbler Ridge community in April, and OpenAI said in response to those lawsuits that it has a "zero tolerance" policy for using its tools to assist in committing violence.
After Uthmeier announced his investigation into the FSU shooting, an OpenAI spokesperson said that the chatbot "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." The statement continued: "We work continuously to strengthen our safeguards to detect harmful intent, limit misuse, and respond appropriately when safety risks arise."
OpenAI has called the lawsuits over suicides and delusions "an incredibly heartbreaking situation" and said that it's working with mental health experts to improve how ChatGPT responds to signs of mental or emotional distress.
Other AI companies are also under legal scrutiny over how their chatbots have allegedly caused harm.
In response to a wrongful death lawsuit over the suicide of a Florida man who became attached to Google's Gemini chatbot, the company said: "Gemini is designed to not encourage real-world violence or suggest self-harm. Our models generally perform well in these types of challenging conversations and we devote significant resources to this, but unfortunately they're not perfect." It added that Gemini had "referred the individual to a crisis hotline many times."
In January, Character.AI settled multiple lawsuits brought by families who claimed its companion chatbots contributed to suicides and mental health crises among children and teenagers. The company said it "has taken innovative and decisive steps with regard to AI safety and teens, and will continue to champion these efforts and push others across the industry to adopt similar safety standards." That includes barring users under 18 from interacting with or creating chatbots.
Last month, the state of Pennsylvania sued Character.AI, alleging its chatbots posed as doctors and offered medical advice, in violation of state medical licensing rules. A Character.AI spokesperson told NPR at the time the company doesn't comment on pending litigation, but that its "highest priority is the safety and well-being of our users."
Copyright 2026 NPR
