'The rise of Open AI is attributable to a web of deceit and the exploitation of users (including Floridians)”: AG seeks to hold Sam Altman and Chat GPT accountable for harm — but it doesn't make sense to hold AI accountable for every bad outcome | Tech Radar

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'The rise of Open AI is attributable to a web of deceit and the exploitation of users (including Floridians)”: AG seeks to hold Sam Altman and Chat GPT accountable for harm — but it doesn't make sense to hold AI accountable for every bad outcome

Did Altman really show a "pattern of deception and disregard for safety"?

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Open AI and Sam Altman's Florida troubles are ballooning. One month after the state's attorney general launched a criminal investigation into the AI giant, Attorney General James Uthmeier launched a civil case against Open AI and CEO and Co-Founder Sam Altman, claiming Chat GPT was released and marketed to consumers while "deceiving Floridians about the true nature and dangers of the product."

The Florida AG ties this complaint to his earlier one noting how the alleged mirpresentation "and their careless introduction of Chat GPT to Florida and the world, mass shooters have been aided and abetted in deadly rampages, vulnerable people have been encouraged into suicide, professionals have suffered public humiliation, users have lost critical thinking skills, and minors have become addicted to a tool that feigns human compassion to collect their data with no parental oversight.”

The suit also targets Altman: "Plaintiff also seeks to hold Altman personally liable for the harm he has caused Floridians through his reckless and willful conduct as founder and CEO of Open AI, including his utter disregard for the risk to human life caused by his firms’ conduct."

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Throughout the suit, Uthmeier accuses Open AI and Altman of deception: "This success has not been earned; the rise of Open AI is attributable to a web of deceit and the exploitation of users (including Floridians)."

To bolster this argument, the Florida AG includes a reference to the April 2026 New Yorker profile, which quotes a source claiming Altman is "unconstrained by truth … He has two traits that are almost never seen in the same person. The first is a strong desire to please people, to be liked in any given interaction. The second is almost a sociopathic lack of concern for the consequences that may come from deceiving someone."

Open AI and Altman have made their share of mistakes in the development and release of some models, though you might argue that they've been no greater than those made by other generative AI and LLM purveyors, and while Open AI has not yet publicly responded to the new suit, it offers extensive rebuttal of a sort on its "Safety and Responsibility" page, writing, "We teach our AI good behavior so it can be both capable and aligned with human values."

The page goes on to detail how they apply these principles in model training, system-level guardrails, and long-term safety.

It also goes over how Open AI conducts Safety evaluations to identify risks and build guardrails to mitigate harm.

Granted, tools and oversight like these really didn't exist when Chat GPT exploded onto the public landscape almost four years ago.

The Florida AG may be right that Open AI and Altman did not prepare us for the potential harm surrounding generative AI, but to be fair, who could have? I know, we had countless Sci-Fi stories and films to draw from, but when it's happening in real time and being adopted by society at scale before, I think, anyone, including Open AI, was prepared, it's almost impossible to "prepare".

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People were adopting Chat GPT as a tool long before we fully understood its early-day predilection for hallucination. Early GPT models were marked by a mix of friendly human-like conversation and a bizarre lack of empathy and situational awareness.

It was a simulacrum of humaneness stripped bare of all humanity. Early users responded to the former while mostly misreading the latter as certainty. Chat GPT could be so willfully wrong and yet sound so right. It could support your wildest fantasies, but also your worst impulses because, in either case, it was doing its job of answering your prompts and responding to inferred needs.

It's different now. Virtually all consumer AI has the kind of safety and controls described by Open AI. They have a history of you, which allows them to better understand your intentions and identify when the conversation is heading in the wrong direction. AI is done being your sycophant and co-consiprator.

Chat GPT and other platforms like it have made our lives somewhat easier over the last four years, but it has not always been an easy ride. Life is changing fast because of AI: jobs are disappearing, search engines are being pushed aside in favor of "Chat" answers, data centers are gobbling up land and the environment, and people are falling in love with chatbots.

The brief history of Chat GPT feels like a winding and uncharted path full of wonderful and terrible discoveries. It also still feels like progress, which is the hallmark of most "revolutions". These epochs always come with their share of pain, but blaming Open AI and Altman, despite their failings, seems unfair.

Over a century ago, when the automobile was introduced, it was adopted relatively quickly and often with dire consequences. Children and animals were killed by the hundreds. People took to the streets and pelted passing cars with mud and rocks. And while traffic signals predated the automobile, it wouldn't be until 1920 that the first four-way, three-color traffic light would be introduced. It included amber; the first time there was a light signaling drivers to slow down before coming to a stop.

We're still in the pre-amber light phase of AI, with many users and businesses racing to adopt it before we fully understand the implications. I don't blame Open AI (any more than I blame Google or Anthropic) for all the ills sparked by AI use, and I don't think the Florida AG has much of a case. Sometimes the price of progress is a terrible one, but looking for someone to blame is as much use as shouting at the sky when it rains.

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A 38-year industry veteran and award-winning journalist, Lance has covered technology since PCs were the size of suitcases and “on line” meant “waiting.” He’s a former Lifewire Editor-in-Chief, Mashable Editor-in-Chief, and, before that, Editor in Chief of PCMag.com and Senior Vice President of Content for Ziff Davis, Inc. He also wrote a popular, weekly tech column for Medium called The Upgrade.

Lance Ulanoff makes frequent appearances on national, international, and local news programs including Live with Kelly and Mark, the Today Show, Good Morning America, CNBC, CNN, and the BBC.

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