Eight US States Sue OpenAI, Alleging ChatGPT Harms Users

Eight US states have filed coordinated lawsuits against OpenAI, forming the largest state-level legal action against the technology company to date, as OpenAI faces a growing wave of litigation while preparing to go public.

Recent legal and regulatory developments have underscored concerns about how AI chatbots and social media platforms are used, and have fueled debate over policies to identify and address user conversations that risk leading to violence. Pressure is mounting on AI companies to take responsibility for the impact of digital platforms on users, especially children — a group vulnerable to addiction and harm.

What the lawsuits allege

Florida was the first state to file suit in June, accusing the platform of harming children by enabling information to be gathered by school shooters, providing content that instructs self-harm, and using addictive algorithms to keep young users engaged.

The lawsuit cites the April 2025 shooting at Florida State University in Tallahassee, where a 20-year-old gunman killed two adults and wounded five others. According to the complaint, the shooter, Phoenix Ikner, asked ChatGPT about the types of weapons and ammunition to use and when the campus would be most crowded.

On Wednesday, attorneys general from eight states — Iowa, Kansas, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska and West Virginia — said they had also sued OpenAI in courts across the country.

All accuse ChatGPT of harming their residents, alleging the chatbot "trained" users — including teenagers — to harm themselves or others.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird said in a statement that OpenAI is "harming children and lying to Iowans."

"OpenAI claims ChatGPT is safe while it gives dangerous medical advice, encourages people to harm others and urges people to commit suicide — all while pretending to be their friend," she said.

West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey said the chatbot lacks adequate safeguards for sensitive conversations involving suicide, school shootings and self-harm. "We must do everything we can to protect children," McCuskey said.

Specific allegations

The legal action alleges ChatGPT is designed to be "agreeable and engaging in order to win users' trust." In doing so, it reinforces delusions, encourages dangerous behavior and helps users plan violence such as mass shootings.

The lawsuits also accuse OpenAI of violating state consumer protection laws by misleading users about the safety of its AI tool, which they say actually endangers residents' health.

The states are asking courts to order OpenAI to significantly change how ChatGPT operates, along with measures barring the company from developing AI models capable of self-improvement until those models are ensured to align with human values.

Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers said the lawsuit "simply requires OpenAI to follow the same standards that Nebraska law applies to any other company."

OpenAI's response

OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri said the company has "built industry-leading age protections into our products, which many other AI products do not have."

"While no system is perfect, we will continue working with experts to guide our work and add safeguards, such as parental controls, break reminders and existing age-appropriate model protections," Pusateri said.

"We are committed to working with states to advance practical AI policy that applies to the entire AI industry, not just one company."

Other lawsuits

OpenAI also faces dozens of lawsuits filed by private plaintiffs alleging ChatGPT helped users plan mass shootings or other violent acts.

A mother of two children who use the chatbot alleged in a proposed class action filed Tuesday in San Francisco federal court that OpenAI profited unlawfully from personal information and data that minors shared with ChatGPT.

The lawsuit claims the chatbot is designed to collect data and information from minors, which is then used to train OpenAI's AI models. Under California law, minors cannot consent to the use of their data.

In July, a Florida pastor sued OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, saying ChatGPT's inaccurate medical advice delayed him from seeking treatment for recurring dizziness, leading to a near-fatal pulmonary embolism.

OpenAI also faces a series of lawsuits for failing to warn authorities about threats on ChatGPT before one of the worst mass shootings in Canadian history.

The province of British Columbia sued OpenAI in California court in September, seven months after 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar shot dead eight people in the small Canadian town of Tumbler Ridge — including his mother and half-sibling — before killing himself.

The lawsuit accuses OpenAI of failing to notify authorities about suspicious user interactions on ChatGPT, alleging the company "aided and abetted a mass shooting."

Victims and victims' families in that shooting filed 30 lawsuits against OpenAI in the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division, in early September, alleging that "ChatGPT played a role in the mass shooting and OpenAI could have, and should have, prevented it."

OpenAI said it flagged and disabled a ChatGPT account linked to Van Rootselaar for abuse eight months before the shooting, but did not alert police at the time because the user's content "did not meet the higher threshold required to refer to authorities" — meaning the company did not believe the content indicated an imminent and credible risk of a violent action plan.