Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed a request for a preliminary injunction in state court seeking to bar OpenAI from developing new models until it implements independent safety mechanisms, and to restrict children's use of ChatGPT.
The filing follows a May lawsuit, the first by a U.S. state against OpenAI and Sam Altman, which alleged the company promotes an unsafe product that can assist violent crimes and violates Florida's deceptive trade practices and children's online privacy laws. Uthmeier said an OpenAI board member has since stated there is a real risk of loss of control over the company's systems and that OpenAI is not on track to prevent it.
Uthmeier also asked the state legislature for authority to hold AI startups criminally liable if their large language models assist in crimes.
OpenAI said it is cooperating with Florida and has suspended training of its most advanced models until it establishes additional guardrails of its own design.
The case, filed in a Republican stronghold, could test how far individual states can go in regulating AI absent federal rules, following the Trump administration's stance against imposing them. Palantir founder Alex Karp has argued that calls for regulation from major AI companies are really attempts to shield themselves from liability. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has also expressed skepticism about AI and support for state-level regulation.