Florida seeks a ban on ChatGPT acting like a person

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.

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.”