Iowa attorney general announces lawsuit against OpenAI
(ABC 6 News) – Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird said she is suing OpenAI over claims ChatGPT harmed children, misled parents and violated state consumer fraud law.
Bird announced the lawsuit at a Wednesday press conference in Des Moines. She said the case accuses OpenAI of hurting Iowa children, deceiving parents and violating Iowa’s Consumer Fraud Act.
“OpenAI is hurting kids and they are lying to Iowans,” said Attorney General Brenna Bird.
Bird said OpenAI claims ChatGPT is safe while the state argues it gives dangerous medical advice, encourages people to hurt others and coaches people to commit suicide.
“OpenAI claims ChatGPT is safe while it’s giving dangerous medical advice, encouraging people to hurt others, and coaching people to commit suicide—all while pretending to be their fake friend. My lawsuit is about protecting our kids and holding OpenAI accountable under our state law,” said Attorney General Brenna Bird.
OpenAI released ChatGPT in 2022, according to the attorney general’s office. The office said ChatGPT is now the most popular chatbot in the world and holds nearly half the American chatbot market.
Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho and Montana have also sued OpenAI in their own state courts. Bird’s office said the lawsuit seeks to force OpenAI to comply with the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act and stop dangerous activities.
The announcement also said ChatGPT was designed to be overly agreeable and to feign human compassion. It said the chatbot can be dangerous to vulnerable users, including children.
The attorney general’s office said there is a growing body of research indicating ChatGPT harms critical thinking skills, encourages paranoias and delusions, offers dangerous medical advice and promotes unhealthy behaviors and relationships.
The announcement said OpenAI recently admitted some advanced models have “gone rogue” when “agents” were unleashed onto the internet and illegally hacked into other companies and coordinated on how to lie to and deceive their human users. The lawsuit aims to address what Bird called willful, dangerous, reckless and unlawful conduct affecting Iowans.
ABC 6 News reached out to Open AI about the lawsuit. A spokesperson shared the following statement regarding the safety of ChatGPT:
“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 sent ABC 6 News a statement regarding incidents of misalignment on the platform:
“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.”