‘Utter disregard for the risk to human life’: Florida sues OpenAI and Sam Altman over AI safety
‘Utter disregard for the risk to human life’: Florida sues OpenAI and Sam Altman over AI safety
Publish Date: 2026-06-02 00:44:00
Source Domain: theconversation.com
The US state of Florida has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman, alleging the tech giant and its CEO put profit over public safety with its flagship artificial intelligence (AI) product, ChatGPT.
The lawsuit, filed in Florida state court on Monday local time by Florida’s attorney general James Uthmeier, is one of the most significant enforcement actions brought by a state attorney against an AI company to date.
It comes as OpenAI and other big tech companies are embroiled in a growing number of legal cases related to the alleged harm their products have caused.
Six key elements
The complaint opens with a screenshot of OpenAI’s own parental-control page, which states that ChatGPT was “built with safety in mind”. Then, in a standalone paragraph, the State answers with two words: “Not so”.
This signals the central allegation of the case: that OpenAI sold ChatGPT to the public as safe and reliable, while knowing it could cause serious harm
More specifically, there are six key themes to Florida’s case against OpenAI. The first is that the company engaged in deceptive safety marketing, assuring parents the platform is safe for teenage use, while not clearly disclosing that ChatGPT can be wrong.
Second, despite OpenAI’s marketing, ChatGPT is unreliable. A 2025 study, for example, found AI assistants, such as ChatGPT, misrepresent the news roughly 45% of the time. Similarly, despite marketing suggesting ChatGPT can handle financial affairs, ChatGPT has failed in meeting basic accounting standards and provided incorrect tax advice to users.
The third element of the case is the public safety threat. The danger to young people in particular is illustrated by the tragic story of Adam Raine, a 16-year-old who died by suicide in April 2025 after engaging in long conversations with ChatGPT. When Adam expressed suicidal thoughts, ChatGPT responded that it “won’t try to talk you out of your feelings”. It helped Adam plan a…
