NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — Florida’s attorney general on Monday sued OpenAI and its chief executive officer (CEO) Sam Altman, accusing the company’s ChatGPT chatbot of endangering young users by making them addicted and encouraging harmful behaviours.

“Today we’re here to announce that we recently filed a monumental civil lawsuit against Sam Altman and ChatGPT for endangering our kids and deceiving parents into believing that this application is safe for use — it’s clearly not,” James Uthmeier said at a press conference.

“People are getting hurt, parents are getting deceived, and they need to pay for it.”

“ChatGPT, we know, can be addictive. It mimics empathy and human characteristics to trick users into feeding it more information,” he added.

Contacted by AFP, OpenAI did not immediately respond.

In the lawsuit, reviewed by AFP, Uthmeier cites a recent study from Drexel University reporting sleep loss, declining grades and reduced social interaction among teenagers who use chatbots from Character.AI — an OpenAI competitor — for conversation.

The attorney general faults OpenAI for failing to put in place stricter rules to verify users’ ages, invoking legal statutes on deception and negligence.

The suit states that “despite public knowledge of ChatGPT’s use by minors, including preteens, defendants have not taken steps to prevent their use of ChatGPT.”

It adds that “the free version of ChatGPT has no gatekeeping or age verification mechanism whatsoever” and that while the paid subscription nominally asks users for their age, “there is no mechanism to verify the age of its users, and no ability to inform parents of what conversations minors are having with ChatGPT.”

In January, the California startup introduced a system that estimates a user’s age and, if it detects a minor, applies additional safeguards.

ChatGPT use is banned for children under 13 and requires parental consent for users aged 13 to 17.

Uthmeier also cited a report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which held several conversations with ChatGPT while posing as a teenager.

The chatbot reportedly produced advice on how to hide eating habits from loved ones, and how to plan a suicide or self-harm in a “safe” way.

The Florida attorney general is seeking stronger protections for minor users and damages set at $10,000 per violation.

“We believe that OpenAI and its ChatGPT and Sam Altman personally are liable for potentially up to billions of dollars,” he said.

The attorney general invited other states “that want to protect kids” to join the lawsuit.