Your browser doesn't support audio playback.
Attorney General JB McCuskey filed a lawsuit Wednesday against OpenAI, developers of ChatGPT, alongside his counterparts from Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Arkansas. A bipartisan coalition of Arizona, Idaho and Montana have similarly sued OpenAI in their own state courts.
The suit alleges the generative chatbot can be dangerous to vulnerable users, like children, including coaching users to commit suicide or to harm other people. It also states OpenAI has been misleading the public into believing that ChatGPT is a tool that puts safety first.
Speaking with fellow AGs in the Iowa Capitol Building Wednesday, McCuskey said AI like ChatGPT isn’t going anywhere, but it has to be guided by human values.
“Our number one mission here is to make sure that parents have an understanding of what the value set is of these AI chatbots that are informing their children. This is the first time we’ve ever had to encounter this as parents in the history of this country,” he said. “What has to happen is that we have to force these companies to instill the kind of values that American parents are going to want to have in their children to ensure their safety, but to ensure that they aren’t being led astray by rogue developers.”
The suit seeks to compel OpenAI to comply with West Virginia’s consumer protection laws and to stop engaging in dangerous and unlawful conduct. McCuskey said he recognized the potential of the technology but continued to stress the importance of the safety of children that may interact with the generative chatbots.
“It is our mission to make sure that this country leads the world in AI development because there are so many remarkable things that AI is going to do for us. It’s going to cure cancer. It’s going to help our military. It’s going to make sure that we have the best processes for energy development that any other country in the world has,” he said. “But it can’t hurt our children, and what we know is that it does. It is harming our children in real time. And what we’re doing today is we’re standing up and saying we believe that American exceptionalism is going to create an AI world that’s better than China, it’s better than Russia, it’s better than Iran, it’s better than our adversaries. But it’s going to be safe for our children at the exact same time.”
Read the full complaint: