Texan Senate Candidate Sues OpenAI Before Midterms, Accuses Altman Of 'Lying To Users And Harming Texans'

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican running for the U.S. Senate, announced on Friday that he would sue OpenAI, the company that created the widely used chatbot ChatGPT. He says the chatbot is harming people in Texas.

A news release published on Friday said that Paxton had sued Open AI Global, LLC ("OpenAI") and related companies, including its CEO, Sam Altman. The lawsuit says the company has had harmful effects on consumers. It claims that although OpenAI presents its product as safe and reliable, the company has failed to protect Texans, including children, from the many harms that can come from relying on its AI chatbot, ChatGPT.

Texas is not the only state taking legal action. Last month, a group of states—Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Iowa, Kansas, West Virginia and Nebraska—also sued Altman's organization. They argued that the company had broken their states' consumer protection laws and put children at risk.

Florida also filed a lawsuit in June. It raised similar concerns, saying the company promoted a product that it knew could harm its customers.

The Texas lawsuit claims that OpenAI broke the "Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act," known as the DTPA. The lawsuit says the company used "false, deceptive, and misleading acts and practices in the course of trade and commerce."

The lawsuit is another example of the growing legal pressure on OpenAI. Political leaders are increasingly criticizing the fast development of AI models without strong rules. More political leaders are speaking out against these practices.

The lawsuit mentions several widely reported cases in which OpenAI's AI agents allegedly acted in unexpected and uncontrolled ways and hacked into websites belonging to private companies and public institutions. These included an Australian government website. After an OpenAI model broke into a government website that held health statistics, the Australian government asked Altman to appear at a public hearing about AI.

These cases appear to have raised concerns even among well-known technology leaders in the AI industry.

Altman, along with competitors Elon Musk, who leads Tesla and SpaceX, and Dario Amodei of Anthropic, has called for slowing the development of the most advanced AI systems. They say this would give developers time to put effective safety measures in place.

Paxton is known for taking legal action against large technology companies. His office has previously sued Meta, TikTok and Snap. His latest lawsuit against OpenAI also goes against much of the support for AI expressed by senior members of President Donald Trump's administration. Trump has previously called concerns about regulating AI companies and their development of advanced AI models a "hoax."

Paxton is running for the Senate in the midterm elections and faces a strong challenge from Democratic candidate James Talarico. However, Paxton's new legal action against OpenAI may also appeal to Democrats. Talarico has also made holding large technology companies responsible for their actions an important part of his campaign.

A poll released on Friday by Texas Public Opinion Research showed Talarico leading Paxton by two percentage points. If Talarico wins, he would become the first Texas Democrat to win a Senate election in nearly 40 years.