States Sue OpenAI, Claiming ChatGPT Gives Young Users Dangerous Advice

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

Eight states filed lawsuits against OpenAI Oct. 14, claiming the company’s ChatGPT app harms children, deceives parents, and violates state consumer fraud laws.

The states – Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Arkansas, Idaho, Montana, and Arizona – individually filed lawsuits in their states, alleging the chatbot was giving dangerous medical advice, encouraging people to hurt others, and coaching people to commit suicide while pretending to be a friend.

“We will not just accept that any big tech company can make money by hurting Iowa’s kids and use them as lab rats in a race to be the first, or the biggest, or have the most users,” Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird told reporters Wednesday during a news conference on the lawsuits.

Chatbots and artificial intelligence (AI) are becoming increasingly popular with teens. Almost two-thirds – 64 percent – of teens ages 13 to 17 reported using chatbots, with about 30 percent using them every day, according to a report published in December 2025 by Pew Research Center.

ChatGPT is by far the most popular among teens and favored by 59 percent of them, the survey found.

The lawsuits filed Wednesday claim ChatGPT is marketed by OpenAI as a safe product but, in reality, it is designed to be dangerous to vulnerable users, like children, and coaches them to commit suicide or to harm other people.

The states are asking the courts to compel OpenAI to comply with state consumer fraud laws, which prohibit deceptive business practices.

OpenAI responded to the filing of lawsuits, saying the company has implemented several safety measures and is continuing to work to build more safeguards.

“We’ve built industry-leading, age-specific protections into our product that many other AI products lack,” OpenAI’s spokesman Eric Porterfield told The Epoch Times in an email. “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.”

The company is committed to working with states on advancing pragmatic AI policies that apply to the entire AI industry, according to Porterfield.

OpenAI claims its chatbot is intended for users age 13 and older. Users under 18 need permission from a parent or guardian to use it.

ChatGPT for Teens applies default safeguards for users under 18, OpenAI claims. Teens can manage and delete their chats and history, and control whether their conversations are used by the company to train models.

The company claims 90 percent of its teen ChatGPT users only use it for learning, skill-building, or productivity. Half of the teens who use it for conversations take breaks when they are given a break reminder, according to OpenAI.

Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach said the states moved ahead with lawsuits instead of waiting for Congress to set federal guidelines.

“We’re in a world right now where the AI companies – and in this case OpenAI – are asked to police themselves,” said Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach during Wednesday’s press conference. “And as our cases allege, they’ve done a very poor job of policing themselves and have placed the public in danger.”

Florida became the first state to file a lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman in June, alleging its chatbot concealed serious risks, suppressed internal safety warnings, and deceived Floridians.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier launched a criminal investigation into OpenAI in April after ChatGPT gave detailed advice to a suspected shooter who allegedly used it in a deadly campus shooting at Florida State University last year.