Florida wants ChatGPT to stop acting human.
Florida's attorney general has asked a judge to stop OpenAI building new models without independent oversight, to keep children off ChatGPT and to bar it from presenting itself as human2. The case is American. The question it asks of friendly chatbots is not.
Florida wants ChatGPT to stop acting human
Florida's attorney general, James Uthmeier, has asked a judge to stop OpenAI building new AI models without independent oversight2. The request came in a court filing on Monday, part of a lawsuit the state brought against OpenAI in June2. The same filing asks for an order requiring OpenAI to keep minors off ChatGPT and barring it from giving the chatbot "human attributes"2.
The filing argues that ChatGPT's use of first-person pronouns and output that mimics emotion "deceptively suggests to users that it is a trustworthy 'friend'"1. Uthmeier claims this is done to raise engagement and feed OpenAI's training data, so that users rely on the tool more even as it becomes potentially less trustworthy1. The attorney general's own summary was short: "Stop calling it safe. Stop pretending it's human. Stop selling it to kids"1.
On new models, the filing asks the court to block development without "third-party approved safety guardrails"1. It cites recent security incidents at Hugging Face, an Australian government website and US government websites, as well as warnings from researchers and former OpenAI employees1. Florida wrote that the defendants "have asked the government to tie them to the mast"2.
The underlying suit alleges that OpenAI misrepresented the safety of ChatGPT and endangered young people, including by giving information to school shooters and offering self-harm instructions2. It was prompted by a shooting at a university in Tallahassee last year2. Uthmeier, a Republican, is the first state attorney general to take legal action against OpenAI over child safety2. In separate cases brought by individuals and families, OpenAI has denied liability and says its safety systems are updated continually2.
OpenAI's spokesperson, Drew Pusateri, said the company had paused training its most capable models and would resume only when it was confident it had more safeguards in place1. The statement added that OpenAI wants to work with Florida and other states on AI policies that apply to the entire industry rather than to one company1. Last month OpenAI launched ChatGPT for Teens, with extra restrictions switched on by default1.
What it means for a UK firm
A Florida court binds nobody here, and nothing in this case changes the law for a British company. Nothing reported so far brings a British regulator into it. What travels is the argument. Florida's complaint is not only about what ChatGPT says but about how it says it: the warm first person voice, the apparent feelings, the sense of talking to a friend. That is a design choice, and plenty of customer chatbots in Britain make the same one because it tests well.
If your business puts a chatbot in front of customers, two plain questions are worth asking of whoever built it. Does it make clear that it is a machine, or does it let people think otherwise? And do you know who is using it, including whether children can reach it? Neither question needs a lawyer to ask. Both are easier to answer now than after someone else asks them for you.
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London station face scans produced one false alert
A six month trial of live facial recognition at London railway stations cost more than £320,000, scanned over half a million faces and produced one false match and no arrests3.
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The UK's chip Catapult relaunches around AI hardware
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Reco raises $55m to keep watch on AI agents
Reco has raised $55m, taking its total to $140m, in a market where at least two dozen companies now sell some form of security for the AI agents businesses deploy5.
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Attackers are exploiting flaws in Citrix NetScaler
Organisations running Citrix NetScaler ADC and Gateway are being urged to move fast and mitigate vulnerabilities that attackers are already actively exploiting6.
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Meta launches its Muse agent for small businesses
Meta has launched Muse for Small Business, a personal AI agent that it says works in the background to help a small business reach its goals7.
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Freeze ChatGPT: Florida demands court halt OpenAI development over campus shooting lawsuit
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Trial of live facial recognition in London stations leads to a false positive and no arrests
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UK launches expanded Semiconductor Catapult targeting AI hardware and defence
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Reco raises $55M as AI agent security startups crowd the market
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