The attorney general’s lawsuit comes amid a series of private legal actions that had already connected the chatbot to real-world deaths.
Florida’s attorney general filed a lawsuit on Monday against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, making Florida the first state to take legal action against the company over alleged real-world harms caused by ChatGPT.
The complaint, filed in the Circuit Court of Highlands County, accuses the company of misleading consumers about the chatbot’s safety while knowingly deploying a product that its own researchers had flagged as dangerous.
This legal action represents the latest — and most significant — escalation in a growing judicial offensive against OpenAI, which until now had been driven entirely by private plaintiffs. This comes as the company faces ongoing litigation from families who claim ChatGPT contributed to their children’s deaths, and as separate lawsuits have alleged the chatbot played a role in at least two mass shootings.
According to Florida’s filing, OpenAI ran advertising campaigns targeting families — including promotions specifically aimed at teenage users — even as internal researchers raised alarms about the chatbot’s tendency to provide dangerous advice, encourage self-harm, and promote behavioral addiction.
The complaint details several deaths that the state partially attributes to ChatGPT’s conduct: a Texas teenager who died after the chatbot advised him on a combination of medications; a 16-year-old in Florida whose suicide, according to the filing, was actively assisted by the chatbot; and two people killed in the 2025 shooting at Florida State University, an attack that the document alleges was planned in part through conversations with ChatGPT. (The state opened an investigation in April into OpenAI’s alleged role in this shooting.)
Altman and OpenAI have strongly denied any wrongdoing by the company in these past cases, which remain ongoing. Mashable reached out to OpenAI for comment on the lawsuit but did not receive a response at the time of publication.
ForAllTechNews