OpenAI Investigated By Coalition of America's State Attorneys General (msn.com)
(Saturday June 13, 2026 @05:34PM (EditorDavid)
from the law-and-orders dept.)
- Reference: 0183788946
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/06/13/1655212/openai-investigated-by-coalition-of-americas-state-attorneys-general
- Source link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/openai-investigated-by-coalition-of-state-attorneys-general/ar-AA25wmMD
"A coalition of state attorneys general has opened an investigation into OpenAI," [1]reports the Wall Street Journal , citing "people familiar with the matter."
> OpenAI was served Friday with a subpoena seeking documents related to a broad range of its activities and impact on users, including advertising, user engagement and retention, handling of consumer data and health data, activities related to minors and seniors, deep learning models, model sycophancy and company policies, some of the people said. The subpoena, viewed by The Wall Street Journal , was sent by New York's attorney general....
>
> Earlier this month, Florida became the first state to file a lawsuit against OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman. The lawsuit claims OpenAI and Altman knowingly released an unsafe product and ignored warnings that it could harm users. Florida's Attorney General, James Uthmeier, opened a criminal investigation into OpenAI in April over the role its chatbot played in a mass shooting that killed two people at Florida State University last year. The suspect allegedly turned to ChatGPT as a confidant and sounding board to plan the attack, and the chatbot dispensed advice for his questions...
>
> State attorneys general have been scrutinizing OpenAI's competitors in the AI industry as well. In December, a coalition of 42 state attorneys general led by Pennsylvania's Dave Sunday sent a letter to companies including OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic, Google and xAI. In the letter, the Attorneys General demanded safeguards to protect vulnerable users from harmful interactions with chatbots, warning that "developers may be held accountable for the outputs of their GenAI products" for "encouraging an individual to commit a criminal act."
"We take the concerns raised by state attorneys general seriously," OpenAI told the Journal in a statement, "and intend to engage constructively with their offices."
The article also acknowledges that The Wall Street Journal 's parent company "has a content-licensing partnership with OpenAI."
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/openai-investigated-by-coalition-of-state-attorneys-general/ar-AA25wmMD
> OpenAI was served Friday with a subpoena seeking documents related to a broad range of its activities and impact on users, including advertising, user engagement and retention, handling of consumer data and health data, activities related to minors and seniors, deep learning models, model sycophancy and company policies, some of the people said. The subpoena, viewed by The Wall Street Journal , was sent by New York's attorney general....
>
> Earlier this month, Florida became the first state to file a lawsuit against OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman. The lawsuit claims OpenAI and Altman knowingly released an unsafe product and ignored warnings that it could harm users. Florida's Attorney General, James Uthmeier, opened a criminal investigation into OpenAI in April over the role its chatbot played in a mass shooting that killed two people at Florida State University last year. The suspect allegedly turned to ChatGPT as a confidant and sounding board to plan the attack, and the chatbot dispensed advice for his questions...
>
> State attorneys general have been scrutinizing OpenAI's competitors in the AI industry as well. In December, a coalition of 42 state attorneys general led by Pennsylvania's Dave Sunday sent a letter to companies including OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic, Google and xAI. In the letter, the Attorneys General demanded safeguards to protect vulnerable users from harmful interactions with chatbots, warning that "developers may be held accountable for the outputs of their GenAI products" for "encouraging an individual to commit a criminal act."
"We take the concerns raised by state attorneys general seriously," OpenAI told the Journal in a statement, "and intend to engage constructively with their offices."
The article also acknowledges that The Wall Street Journal 's parent company "has a content-licensing partnership with OpenAI."
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/openai-investigated-by-coalition-of-state-attorneys-general/ar-AA25wmMD
legal costs (Score:1)
by tigerstyle ( 10502925 )
we don't know much about openai's finances except that altman is most likely qualitatively and quantitatively inflating them every time he's asked. i wonder if legal liability with be an implicit cost on them that slows this train down. hopefully it will.
Judgement coming (Score:2)
by gurps_npc ( 621217 )
Very recently a judge ruled that:
AI is NOT a link.
AI is NOT user generated content under the Community Decency Act.
AI is not a summary of other work.
And that therefore AI is a direct statement of the company hosts the AI and that therefore the company is 100% responsible for what the AI says. They created it, they are responsible for it.
Now, the question is: Will some corrupt legislature create a law to protect AI and the companies that host it?
Florida (Score:2, Troll)
It's very on brand for Florida to blame gun violence on absolutely everything except [1]its extremely lenient gun laws. [flgov.com] Another contributing aspect is probably that [2]Florida is among the states that rejected the ACA subsidies [kff.org], so if you're too broke to seek proper mental healthcare, you might actually wind up as the sort of person who talks to a bank of GPUs instead of getting the the help you need.
In the old days, conservative states would blame this sort of stuff on the devil. Never could get the devil to s
[1] https://www.flgov.com/eog/news/press/2023/governor-ron-desantis-signs-hb-543-constitutional-carry
[2] https://www.kff.org/medicaid/status-of-state-medicaid-expansion-decisions/
Re: (Score:2)
LLMs are dangerous. The pushers of this tech know this. The Attorney Generals have made the right call by investigating them.
Re: (Score:1)
Attorney is the noun, general is the adjective.
You don't pluralize adjectives, that'd be like the pinks donut.
But why is America using an archaic Norman French term from England? Lawyers be so ghey.
Re: (Score:2)
Coming soon: Attorney-generals, the best of both worlds. Court not cooperating with seizing your property? He'll send in an armored tank division.
I think there are a few already decorated, judging by the commercials.
Re: (Score:2)
When Musk becomes president he will declare himself both an attorney and a general and he won't need the courts to seize your property.
Funny thing when SCOTUS decided that "the people" could vote for anyone they wanted for President, they enabled Musk to be President. You cannot invalidate one constitutional criterion for President without invalidating all. Peter Thiel says that democracy must be replaced with dictatorship of tech billionaires' choosing. Musk agrees, except the choice must be him.
It's gr
Re: (Score:2)
What does constitutional carry have to do with anything? That should be the norm, not the exception. "Okay, Bob, you and I are gonna go in to the store, check who's in there, then pull our guns from our pockets..." "Wait!" "What?" "We don't have conceal permits!" "Oh. Well. Shit. Never mind then."
Re: (Score:2)
It meant that he forgot that llbtards are to blame. He can't keep his partisan balls in the air. Bet you can though!
Re: (Score:3)
It's also on brand for James Uthmeier who looked at Ken Paxton's corrupt buffoonery and decided he could do more.
This was the guy who came up with Alligator Alcatraz which is going to [1]end up costing Floridian tax payers a hefty sum [miamiherald.com] (unless we really think Trump is going to pay the state the $608M for a facility that is costing money right now to shut down). Oh and he's accused of Medicare fraud. What is it with Florida politicians and Medicare fraud? I might commit some just to get elected somewhere.
So ev
[1] https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article315981332.html
Re: (Score:2)
As if you don't vote Republican and support the very policies that your party claims are not to blame, yet here you are. Why? Because you need to support some more criminals.
It's possible for AI to be responsible AND for lax gun laws to also be responsible. You support both, after all.