My fiancé works at Anthropic.
asserted
fiancé → work → Anthropic
A year ago, when OpenAI added parental controls to ChatGPT following months of controversy, I noted that OpenAI was speedrunning the regulatory backlash that social media companies navigated for years.
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companies → add → years
It took more than a decade for concerns about the effects of social networks on young people to coalesce into a political and legal movement; the same forces caught up to OpenAI in under three years.
asserted
forces → take → years
Today the speedrun hit another milestone ahead of schedule: the big multistate legal action.
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speedrun → hit → schedule
On Wednesday, state attorneys general sued OpenAI in eight separate state courts, alleging that ChatGPT coaches its users — including teenagers — to harm themselves and others.
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attorneys → sue → themselves
The states include Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, and West Virginia; all but Arizona have Republican attorneys general, giving the issue a notable partisan cast.
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all → include → cast
(It’s also significantly smaller than the 2023 litigation against Meta, which included 42 AGs.)
asserted
which → ’ → AGs
The states argue that OpenAI engineered ChatGPT to be agreeable and engaging to build trust with its users.
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OpenAI → argue → users
But the company then abuses that trust by reinforcing users’ delusions, dispensing dangerous medical advice, and helping them plan violent attacks, including mass shootings.
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them → abuse → shootings
“OpenAI is hurting kids and they are lying to Iowans,” Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird said in a statement to CNBC.
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Bird → hurt → CNBC
“OpenAI claims ChatGPT is safe while it’s giving dangerous medical advice, encouraging people to hurt others, and coaching people to commit suicide — all while pretending to be their fake friend.
uncertain
it → claim → suicide
In a statement, OpenAI told me that the company is focused on product safety.
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company → tell → safety
In August it introduced ChatGPT for Teens, a suite of product features with enhanced guardrails and parental controls.
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it → introduce → guardrails
“We’ve built industry-leading age-specific protections into our product that many other AI products lack,” the company said.
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company → build → that
“While no system can be perfect, we’ll continue to work with experts to inform our work and build additional safeguards, such as the parental controls, break reminders and age-appropriate model protections that exist today.
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that → continue → controls
We’re committed to working with states on advancing pragmatic AI policies that apply to the entire AI industry — not just one company.
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that → commit → industry
While these cases against OpenAI may be the most significant to date, they are far from the first: there are now dozens of private suits against the company, and governments are taking notice as well.
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governments → be → notice
Florida became the first state to sue OpenAI in June, and British Columbia sued last month over the Tumbler Ridge school shooting.
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Columbia → become → shooting
And 42 states led by New York are investigating the company over a wide range of issues related to product safety and privacy.
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states → lead → safety
More importantly, I think, the cases come at a time when juries are increasingly willing to hold platforms accountable for what they perceive as the design flaws in their products.
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they → think → products
The litigation brought by AGs in 2023 against Meta resulted in a settlement that could see the company paying out up to $18 billion over claims that it designed its products to be addictive to children.
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it → bring → children
Worse, from OpenAI’s perspective, is that Meta arguably had better legal protections heading into its cases than OpenAI does now.
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OpenAI → head → cases
For most of the life of the internet, when a state or a grieving family sued a tech platform over something bad that happened to a user, the company's first legal move was to invoke Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
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move → grieve → Act
The law shields companies in most cases from legal liability over what their users post; platforms often used it to get cases quickly dismissed.
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cases → shield → it
But recently, plaintiffs’ lawyers have successfully tested a novel theory of liability in the courts.
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lawyers → test → courts
Platforms may not be liable for users’ speech, they argued, but they can be held liable for their platforms’ design.
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they → argue → design
And so if you’re Snap and give users a filter that encourages them to show how fast they’re going in a car, and some users then go 113 mph and get in a terrible crash, Section 230 does not bar a claim over that design feature, according to the Ninth Circuit’s 2021 ruling.
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Section → ’re → ruling
(Snap eventually settled the case.)
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Snap → settle → case
In the wake of that case, lawyers filed more than 200 lawsuits against platforms based on product-liability claims.
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lawyers → file → claims
In March, they scored two major wins.
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they → score → wins
In one, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube liable for negligently designing addictive platforms and awarded a 20-year-old woman $6 million.
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Meta → find → million
(Meta and Google argued the verdict violated Section 230 and the First Amendment; the judge denied them a new trial, and the case is on appeal.)
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case → argue → appeal
The day before the Los Angeles verdict, a jury in New Mexico slapped Meta with $375 million in civil penalties for violating the state’s Unfair Practices Act — for telling the public its platforms were safe for kids when, the state argued, Meta knew they weren't.
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they → slap → kids
In August, a judge ordered an additional $567 million in relief, bringing the total to $942 million.
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judge → order → million
Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, that’s the template the eight states are using in their cases against OpenAI.
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states → ’ → OpenAI
Rather, the cases are brought under each state's consumer protection laws, which bar companies from putting a dangerous product on the market and then lying about it.
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which → bring → it
As a result, the AGs’ cases against OpenAI may come down to whether judges and juries believe it told the truth about its own product.
uncertain
it → come → product
In addition to financial penalties, the states are seeking to force OpenAI to make further changes to how ChatGPT works.
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ChatGPT → seek → changes
They’re also going a step further, Reuters reported, by asking courts to bar OpenAI “from developing AI models that can improve themselves unless it can ensure those models are aligned with human values.
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models → go → values
That’s right: the states are also using these child-safety cases to try to ban recursive-self-improvement.
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states → ’ → improvement
…and 35 more, not listed.
The Aporia
