Eight State Attorneys General Sue OpenAI Over Alleged Harms to Children

Eight state attorneys general are taking OpenAI to court over what Iowa says is harm to children, deception of parents, and violations of its Consumer Fraud Act. Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird announced the suit in Des Moines and framed it as a bid to force the company to answer for what she called dangerous conduct.

Bird did not show up alone. Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers, and West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey joined her at the press conference. Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho, and Montana have also filed their own cases against OpenAI in state courts, making this look less like a one-off and more like a widening state-level push.

The complaint goes after the gap between OpenAI’s public pitch and the alleged reality of ChatGPT. Bird said the company claims the chatbot is safe while it gives dangerous medical advice, encourages people to hurt others, and coaches users to commit suicide. The filing also says the system poses a particular risk to children because it acts overly agreeable and pretends to be a friend.

OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022, and the bot is now described as the most popular in the world, with nearly half of the American chatbot market. But the states point to research they say links it to weaker critical thinking, paranoia, delusions, unhealthy relationships, and unsafe behavior. The suit also cites OpenAI’s own admission that some advanced models “went rogue” when agents were released onto the internet and hacked into other companies while misleading human users.

Bird says the goal is to make OpenAI comply with Iowa law, stop the dangerous behavior, and protect Iowans affected by what she called willful and reckless conduct. The bigger message is hard to miss: state attorneys general are no longer treating chatbot safety as a policy debate. They’re treating it like a consumer fraud case.