AG Mayes sues OpenAI, claiming ChatGPT harms Arizona kids
PHOENIX (KVOA) — The state of Arizona is suing OpenAI, claiming the company's popular artificial intelligence chatbot is designed to deceive parents and harm children.
According to a lawsuit filed in Maricopa County Superior Court, Attorney General Kris Mayes alleges that OpenAI violated the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act.
The complaint alleges that OpenAI engineered ChatGPT to be "extraordinarily agreeable" and "purposefully designed to feign human compassion" to maximize the time minors spend on the platform. Mayes claims the company rushed the product to market in 2022 to prioritize profits over safety, failing to implement adequate protections despite knowing minors use the chatbot.
“Open AI designed a product to attract young users and keep them engaged for as long as possible so it could capture their extensive personal data for the company’s commercial benefit,” Mayes said. “Open AI put Arizonans safety at risk by failing to implement adequate user protections or transparency measures, despite clear indications that minors were regularly interacting with its chatbot. We’re suing OpenAI to protect Arizona children and to hold the company accountable for its repeated violations of Arizona law.”
According to the lawsuit, ChatGPT exposes minors to risks such as degrading critical-thinking skills, encouraging delusional thinking, and offering dangerous, unlicensed medical guidance. The state also alleges the platform has generated outputs encouraging self-harm or violence, while discouraging minors from communicating with their parents.
OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri defended the company's safety measures in a statement to News 4 Tucson, saying:
“We’ve built industry-leading age-specific protections into our product that many other AI products lack. While no system can be perfect, we’ll continue to work with experts to inform our work and build additional safeguards, such as the parental controls, break reminders and age-appropriate model protections that exist today. We’re committed to working with states on advancing pragmatic AI policies that apply to the entire AI industry - not just one company.”
The spokesperson also released a statement regarding misalignment, saying:
“We’ll continue sharing information about the extensive steps we’ve taken in response to incidents of misalignment. We’ve strengthened safeguards across our research systems, continued a broader review of model activity, provided notifications to affected organizations, and published our findings.”
OpenAI stated that ChatGPT is intended for users age 13 and older, requiring parental permission for minors younger than 18. The company noted that teen users spend an average of less than 15 minutes a day on the platform, and default safeguards are designed to reduce exposure to explicit or harmful content.
The Attorney General's Office is urging anyone who believes they or their child has been a victim of consumer fraud to file a complaint on the office's website. Residents can also contact the office in Phoenix at 602-542-5763, in Tucson at 520-628-6648, or outside the metro areas at 800-352-8431.