Florida seeks court ruling to officially classify Sam Altman and ChatGPT as a 'public nuisance' — OpenAI fights to keep lawsuit away from a state jury
Florida's lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman has now been sitting before U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in Fort Pierce for seven weeks.
Florida has initiated a lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, seeking to officially classify their AI service, ChatGPT, as a public nuisance. The state's 83-page, ten-count complaint was filed in June and argues that the platform violates Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act by collecting data from under-13 users without parental consent, as required by the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
OpenAI responded by moving the case to federal court, claiming that COPPA's application to AI research services is a novel question of federal law and that federal judges should send the case back to state court. The lawsuit alleges numerous deficiencies in ChatGPT's design, including a default memory feature, lack of age gate in the free tier, voluntary account link requirement for parental controls, and rushed safety evaluations.
The state is seeking a permanent injunction to stop data collection from under-13s and a determination that distributing ChatGPT in Florida constitutes a public nuisance, with penalties of up to $10,000 per willful violation. Altman is being questioned about his potential defenses, including personal jurisdiction, and the case's origins trace back to a toxic culture of deceit within the company.
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