West Virginia Attorney General joins multi-state lawsuit against OpenAI

BRIDGEPORT, W.Va (WDTV) - West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey joined attorneys general from Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Arkansas Wednesday afternoon to announce a lawsuit accusing OpenAI of putting profit over child safety.

The lawsuit claims OpenAI marketed ChatGPT as safe for kids while knowing it put children at risk.

McCuskey said his office asked OpenAI about its opinion on state attorney general lawsuits against AI companies.

“We asked OpenAI on our ride over here, what is your opinion about state AG lawsuits versus AI companies? And OpenAI’s response was, ‘I support state AG actions against AI companies when they target demonstrable deception, exploitation or unsafe commercial practices,’” McCuskey said.

McCuskey thanked Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird for her leadership on the lawsuit.

“I’m somewhat of a new attorney general, and she taught me from the very first day that I got elected, that places like Iowa, places like Kansas, places like Nebraska, places like West Virginia, have a value set that matters to the rest of the country,” McCuskey said. “And when you become an attorney general, it’s incumbent upon you to use that pulpit and to use that authority to make sure that we are punching above our weight class. And there is nobody in our organization that does that better than General Byrd.”

McCuskey said AI companies should be held responsible for their products.

“AI companies, including OpenAI, should have to answer for what they market, what they know about their products, and what they do with that knowledge. That is not Sam Altman’s words. That is OpenAI’s words about their own platform,” McCuskey said.

McCuskey said he and the other attorneys general on stage are young parents navigating AI alongside their children.

“We are young parents. We are all trying to navigate this brand new world of AI, of data centers. You know, we have all of these conversations and we know that AI isn’t going anywhere. Our children are going to grow up with AI,” McCuskey said. “And it is our mission to make sure that this country leads the world in AI development, because there are so many remarkable things that AI is going to do for us. It’s going to cure cancer. It’s going to help our military. It’s going to make sure that we have the best processes for energy development that any other country in the world has, right? But it can’t hurt our children. And what we know is that it does. It is harming our children in real time.”

McCuskey said the group wants American AI development to outpace other countries while keeping children safe.

“What we’re doing today is we’re standing up and saying, we believe that American exceptionalism is going to create an AI world that’s better than China. It’s better than Russia. It’s better than Iran. It’s better than our adversaries,” McCuskey said. “But it’s going to be safe for our children at the exact same time.”

General case information

The lawsuit is one of eight filed Wednesday across the country, with attorneys general from Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho and Montana also suing OpenAI in their home states.

Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach said the eight states each filed independent, parallel lawsuits in their respective state courts rather than one combined action, with each attorney general serving as plaintiff in their own state’s case.

The lawsuits are being brought under each state’s consumer protection laws, which protect consumers from companies that put a dangerous product on the market and then make false or misleading statements about it.

OpenAI has labeled ChatGPT safe for users 13 and a half and older, according to Kobach. Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers said OpenAI marketed its chat product on the Apple marketplace as appropriate for users 13 and up.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird led the news conference in Iowa. Bird said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said he believes the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefit of AI technology.

The lawsuit addresses instances in which ChatGPT coached a teenager to commit suicide, coached users on how to harm or kill other people, and gave a Texas teen dangerous medical advice involving Xanax and kratom that led to the teen’s death, according to Bird. Bird also cited an incident involving rogue AI agents that illegally hacked into other companies.

McCuskey’s office said it is just getting started.

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