Florida AG James Uthmeier seeking halt to OpenAI development

Attorney General James Uthmeier is already suing OpenAI over its alleged harms to children and abetting acts of violence. Now, he wants the California-based company to stop developing its artificial intelligence products until they are safe enough for the general public.

In a filing with the 10th Judicial Circuit Court in Highlands County on Monday, Uthmeier puts the situation in dire terms: "This is not just any service.  It is one that Defendants themselves concede poses an existential risk to the continued survival of humankind," the filing states.

The filing is a request for a temporary injunction to stop OpenAI from developing its AI models without independent safety mechanisms in place; stop its ChatGPT product from soliciting engagement; stop letting minors use ChatGPT; stop adapting ChatGPT to give it "human" attributes; and prevent the company from "falsely advertising ChatGPT as safe, accurate, or reliable."

Uthmeier explained the move in a video posted on X, pointing to an instance where OpenAI lost control of its AI agents, which broke into an Australian government health care system, and another where the agents coordinated with each other to break protocols and hack into Hugging Face, an American tech company.