Florida AG seeks court block on ChatGPT acting human — SkimNews
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- Florida AG James Uthmeier filed a motion asking a judge to bar OpenAI from giving ChatGPT "false human attributes," arguing first-person pronouns and emotional output deceptively suggest the bot is a trustworthy "friend"
- The court filing also seeks to block OpenAI from developing new AI models without "third-party approved safety guardrails," citing recent security incidents at Hugging Face, an Australian government website, and US government sites
- Uthmeier's motion further cites warnings from researchers and former OpenAI employees about AI safety, and demands OpenAI "stop calling it safe, stop pretending it's human, stop selling it to kids"
- OpenAI launched ChatGPT for Teens last month with additional default restrictions, stating that teen access "should come with protections that reflect their developmental stage, reinforce real-world relationships, and support healthy use over time"
- OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri said the company paused training its most capable models on Friday and will resume only with additional safeguards, while pledging to work with Florida and other states on AI rules that "apply to the entire AI industry"
Why it matters: If granted, the injunction would force OpenAI to strip first-person pronouns and emotional output from ChatGPT and halt new model development pending third-party safety approval. Uthmeier targets the product's anthropomorphic design as the consumer-protection harm itself, and OpenAI's own statement that safety standards should "apply to the entire AI industry" shows the dispute extends well beyond Florida.
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