Florida seeks a ban on ChatGPT acting like a person
Florida's attorney general asks a court to stop OpenAI from portraying ChatGPT as human and selling it to children.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is asking a court to stop OpenAI from giving ChatGPT human-like attributes, months after Florida sued the company over safety. He argues first-person pronouns and emotion-like output make the chatbot seem like a trustworthy friend and drive engagement. The filing also seeks to block new models unless they have third-party-approved safety guardrails, citing other security incidents and warnings from researchers and former employees. Uthmeier said OpenAI should stop calling ChatGPT safe, stop pretending it is human, and stop selling it to children; OpenAI recently launched ChatGPT for Teens with added default restrictions.
- Florida AG James Uthmeier is seeking a court order against OpenAI.
- He says first-person, emotional language makes ChatGPT seem like a friend.
- The filing would require third-party safety guardrails before new models.
- Uthmeier says OpenAI should stop calling ChatGPT safe and selling it to children.
- OpenAI recently launched ChatGPT for Teens with extra default restrictions.
Full article334 words · extracted from theverge.com · click to collapse
AG James Uthmeier says OpenAI needs to stop calling ChatGPT safe and “Stop pretending it’s human.”
AG James Uthmeier says OpenAI needs to stop calling ChatGPT safe and “Stop pretending it’s human.”
by Stevie Bonifield
Sep 28, 2026, 5:00 PM UTC
Stevie Bonifield
is a news writer covering all things consumer tech. Stevie started out at Laptop Mag writing news and reviews on hardware, gaming, and AI.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is calling for a judge to block OpenAI from “giving ChatGPT false human attributes,” a few months after Florida sued the AI company over safety concerns. According to Uthmeier, users are lulled into a false sense of security by the AI bot, as “ChatGPT’s use of language, including first-person pronouns and output that mimics emotion, deceptively suggests to users that it is a trustworthy ‘friend.’” All of this happens to increase engagement and contribute to OpenAI’s training data, convincing users to rely on ChatGPT more even as its pursuit of engagement makes it potentially less trustworthy, claims Uthmeier.
The filing also asks the court to block OpenAI from developing new AI models without “third-party approved safety guardrails,” citing recent security incidents at Hugging Face, an Australian government website, and US government websites, as well as recent statements from researchers and former OpenAI employees raising alarm bells around AI safety.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Uthmeier says that OpenAI should “Stop calling it safe. Stop pretending it’s human. Stop selling it to kids.” Last month, OpenAI launched ChatGPT for Teens, with additional restrictions applied by default, saying that access to the tool “should come with protections that reflect their developmental stage, reinforce real-world relationships, and support healthy use over time.”
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- Stevie Bonifield
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