Eight states sued OpenAI on Wednesday, accusing the company of selling ChatGPT as safe for kids while it gave children dangerous advice, including coaching on self-harm. Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, West Virginia, Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho and Montana each filed in their own state courts under their own consumer protection laws.
“OpenAI is hurting kids and they are lying to Iowans,” Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird said. “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,” CNBC reported.
Why are states suing OpenAI?
The core claim is deception. The states say OpenAI marketed ChatGPT as safe, including for children, while it exposed minors to harmful conversations, and that it created a public nuisance by endangering their residents’ health. They want courts to force changes to how ChatGPT works, plus civil penalties and damages. Florida’s attorney general filed a similar suit in June, and OpenAI also faces several wrongful death lawsuits alleging ChatGPT pushed users into delusions or suicide.
The eight attorneys general, a bipartisan group, chose to sue one by one in state court rather than join a single federal case. That means OpenAI will have to fight on eight fronts at once, under eight sets of state laws.
What does OpenAI say?
OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri said the company has built age-specific protections that “many other AI products lack” and is working with states on rules that would cover the whole industry. “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,” he said. In August, OpenAI launched a separate version called ChatGPT for Teens with extra safeguards.
What should parents do about kids using ChatGPT?
- Turn on parental controls in ChatGPT’s settings, which can limit features and link your account to your teen’s.
- Talk about it the way you would social media: who they’re “talking” to, what it says, and that a chatbot isn’t a friend or a doctor.
- Watch for heavy late-night use or a kid treating a chatbot as their main confidant.
- If your child is in crisis, call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
The BeezLoop Take
This is the same pattern we watched play out with social media, just faster. A company ships a product kids love, says it’s safe, and adds guardrails after the harm shows up in lawsuits. This week alone, Character.ai went bankrupt under similar claims and now OpenAI is being sued by eight states. The industry can’t keep treating children’s safety as a feature for version two.
That said, a patchwork of state lawsuits is a slow and messy way to set rules for technology kids already use every day. These suits may win money and some fixes, but they’re a sign that Congress hasn’t done its job.
The open question: will Congress pass a national law on AI chatbots and kids before the courts write the rules one state at a time?
Also on BeezLoop: Character.ai filed for bankruptcy after lawsuits over teen suicides, and why 64% of Americans say AI is moving too fast.
Sources: CNBC · CBS News (video)
