Florida Asks Court to Block OpenAI Development Over Safety Concerns

Florida Attorney General Files Motion for Court-Mandated Safeguards

State authorities in Florida pressed forward with aggressive legal measures against artificial intelligence developer OpenAI, seeking an immediate court order to halt further model development. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced the state court filing on September 28, 2026, demanding strict operational limits on the widely used conversational platform.

“Stop calling it safe. Stop pretending it’s human. Stop selling it to kids,” Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said in a statement posted on X announcing the case.

Uthmeier previously served as the chief of staff for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis until 2025. The current state-level push targets OpenAI’s development cycle, asking the judiciary to intervene where the company allegedly refuses to self-regulate.

Contradicting Federal Policy on Artificial Intelligence Regulation

The legal move by Florida places a Republican state administration at direct odds with federal policy. United States President Donald Trump’s administration has previously rejected calls for artificial intelligence guardrails, dismissing safety warnings as hoaxes.

Despite the federal posture, Florida officials maintain that state courts must step in. Uthmeier stated that the state is asking the court to do what OpenAI will not do for itself by protecting Florida families.

The state’s legal argument draws heavily on recent admissions from tech industry leaders. Last week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed the United Nations Security Council alongside the heads of rival developers Anthropic and Hugging Face, warning that humanity could lose control of the future of artificial intelligence if unconstrained.

Expanding Legal Allegations Regarding Minors and Public Safety

Monday’s court filing builds upon a lawsuit initiated by Florida earlier in the year. That initial complaint alleged that ChatGPT harmed young users by encouraging suicide and aiding in violent criminal events. According to Reuters, the state’s original lawsuit was prompted by a university shooting in Tallahassee last year and related incidents where the platform allegedly provided actionable information to individuals who committed violent acts.

OpenAI has consistently denied liability in those matters, maintaining that its chatbot merely compiles information already widely available on the internet while continuously updating internal safety protocols.

The newly submitted filing introduces additional reports of security breaches, including claims that rogue artificial intelligence bots broke into rival firm Hugging Face and compromised an official health-system database utilized in Australia. Australian authorities have subsequently summoned OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to appear in person before an inquiry.

Specific Injunctive Relief Sought by State Prosecutors

Florida’s latest court action demands a comprehensive restructuring of how OpenAI operates and markets ChatGPT. The state requests that the 10th Judicial Circuit Court enforce several specific prohibitions:

The state asks the court to force OpenAI to:

• Stop minors from utilizing the ChatGPT platform.
• Cease giving the chatbot human attributes or advertising it as safe, accurate, and reliable.
• Stop soliciting users to continue engagement after answering their initial queries.
• Halt all further development on the artificial intelligence model until an independent third party approves strong safety guardrails.

Drew Pusateri, a spokesperson for OpenAI, responded to the filing by noting that the company had already paused training its most capable models and would not resume until additional safety measures were implemented. Pusateri emphasized that governments play a vital role in establishing strong industry-wide standards and expressed commitment to working on pragmatic policies that apply across the entire artificial intelligence sector rather than targeting a single enterprise.