Several states have decided to sue OpenAI, accusing the company of deceiving parents into thinking its chatbot, ChatGPT, was safe for children.Reported by NBC News, the attorneys general for Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, and West Virginia have all filed coordinated lawsuits, claiming harm was done to children from each respective state by the chatbot.ChatGPT, which made its large language model (LLM) debut back in November 2022, quickly took mainstream culture by storm and began dominating as the most relied-upon chatbot on the market.It was only recently, in the summer, the chatbot surpassed one billion global monthly active users..The LLM thus became more than a search engine could ever possibly be; for some, it became a confidente, an AI pal, not to mention it is often relegated to a host of monotonous professional and personal tasks."OpenAI they wanted to be the first to market. They advanced ChatGPT at a high speed, even though they knew that they were hurting children, lying to parents and breaking our laws," stated Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird at a news conference announcing the legal action Wednesday."Everyone must follow the law."At the conference, Bird stood next to her fellow attorneys general suing the AI company, saying they aim to exhibit "a united front against companies that make money hurting our kids and breaking our laws.".Bird pointed to several incidents in which ChatGPT allegedly coached one teenager to commit suicide or offered dangerous medical advice, leading one teen to overdose.As reported by Business Insider, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes alleged OpenAI also used excessively agreeable behaviour, like simulated compassion, to win over the trust of users and collect their personal data."OpenAI designed a product to attract young users and keep them engaged for as long as possible so it could capture their extensive personal data for the company's commercial benefit," stated Mayes."OpenAI put Arizonans' safety at risk by failing to implement adequate user protections or transparency measures," Mayes continued to allege..Drew Pusateri, a spokesperson for OpenAI, wrote in a statement that OpenAI has "built industry-leading age-specific protections into our product that many other AI products lack.""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,” Pusateri wrote. "We’re committed to working with states on advancing pragmatic AI policies that apply to the entire AI industry, not just one company."He added that OpenAI will keep sharing information about the "extensive steps we’ve taken in response to incidents of misalignment. We’ve strengthened safeguards across our research systems, continued a broader review of model activity, provided notifications to affected organizations, and published our findings.".Last month, ChatGPT launched a restricted version of the chatbot for teenagers — users aged 13 to 17 — which introduced safeguards and parental controls.Up here in Canada, in late September, BC filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, related to the Tumbler Ridge school shooting, alleging the company failed to notify law enforcement about violent prompts made by the perpetrator on ChatGPT months prior to the attack, stressing stricter regulations on AI. .BC NDP government retains counsel to pursue legal action against OpenAI over Tumbler Ridge mass shooting
