TALLAHASSEE – Florida filed a civil lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, on Monday, becoming the first state to do so amid claims its ChatGPT product aided acts of violence.
Attorney General James Uthmeier, in announcing the suit, cited several incidents around the country where the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT helped users commit murders, mass shootings and suicides. The lawsuit alleges OpenAI was negligent, engaged in unfair trade practices, and violated public nuisance and product liability laws.
Among the incidents cited by Uthmeier was the April 17, 2025 shooting at Florida State University, which left two dead and five wounded. Law enforcement officials say alleged shooter Phoenix Ikner consulted with ChatGPT on weapons, ammunition and the ideal campus setting to kill as many people as possible.
At a press conference in West Palm Beach, Uthmeier said he filed the suit against Altman and ChatGPT “for endangering our kids and deceiving parents into believing this application is safe for use. It’s clearly not.”
“They need to pay for it by opening up their checkbook and changing the program to ensure that there are parental controls and that we are not endangering our kids,” he added.
The suit is the latest salvo from Uthmeier against OpenAI ChatGPT. In April he launched an investigation into the California-based company earlier this year, then expanded it to a criminal probe two weeks later, based on the FSU shooting.
OpenAI is already facing a civil lawsuit from the family of Tiru Chabba, one of the victims of the shooting. That suit was filed in federal court in Tallahassee, alleging ChatGPT enabled the attack by providing information on how to do it.
At the time, OpenAI spokesman Drew Pusateri defended the company, saying it didn’t push Ikner to commit the massacre.
“In this case, ChatGPT provided factual responses to questions with information that could be found broadly across public sources on the internet, and it did not encourage or promote illegal or harmful activity,” Pusateri said in a statement when the lawsuit was filed.
In his remarks Monday, Uthmeier said OpenAI needs to do more, giving parents more control over ChatGPT and alerting law enforcement when users are seeking information about committing illegal and violent acts.
“It aids them even if they are pursuing violence. It aids them even if they are pursuing criminal conduct,” Uthmeier said. “They have chosen profit over public safety and we are not going to stand for it in the state of Florida.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis has called for an “AI Bill of Rights” legislation that would require AI companies to provide parents with controls and information about the way their children use chatbot products.
The Senate voted for the measure but the House resisted it, with Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, saying he wants to defer to President Donald Trump, who has preferred a national framework to AI policy. A patchwork of 50 different regulations among states will hamper American innovation amid a tech race with China over the burgeoning technology, Trump has said.
