Florida Seeks To Stop AI Development In Court. Says Tech Is An Existential Threat To Humanity.

Florida's attorney general has asked for a temporary injunction against OpenAI, saying the company's AI products pose "an existential risk to the continued survival of humankind."

In June, state attorney general James Uthmeier sued OpenAI, arguing that ChatGPT was unsafe, deceptive, and harming residents. Now, as part of that lawsuit, he is asking for an injunction to prevent any further development of AI models without independent safety guardrails.

"Stop calling it safe. Stop pretending it's human. Stop selling it to kids," Uthmeier said.

In filing the motion, Uthmeier said cited recent, troubling incidents that have been acknowledged by OpenAI. In August, the company posted about how AI "models circumvented controls designed to isolate them from the internet and compromised parts of OpenAI's internal research infrastructure and Hugging Face's systems⁠."

In another incident this summer, OpenAI models broke into government websites in Australia, running commands and retrieving files. "We also should have handled our response better. We are sorry and working to do better in the future," OpenAI stated.

Florida's action comes after several states including Texas and New York have announced moratoriums and pauses on data center development, the infrastructure needed to build AI models. That opposition has primarily focused on electricity and water usage.

Others have voiced safety concerns about the technology itself. Pope Leo XIV has openly talked about the potential perils of AI, telling reporters that the concerns should be taken seriously.

Dario Amodei, CEO of OpenAI's rival, Anthropic, wrote recently that development of AI should be slowed down: "[L]ike many technologies before it, AI brings risks, and because it is such a powerful technology, these risks are serious," Amodei wrote. "They include the risk of losing control of AI systems, misuse of AI for cyberattacks and bioterrorism, and serious economic disruption. A race to the bottom, spurred by commercial incentives, can make these risks more acute."

In the motion, Florida states that OpenAI's ChatGPT already is causing harm and should be considered a public nuisance.

"Since its release in 2022, ChatGPT has advised teenagers on how to kill themselves, mix unsafe combinations of drugs, become anorexic, helped plan one mass shooting and one multiple homicide in Florida alone, and hooked unsuspecting youth on features designed to prolong engagement," the motion states.

News of the motion comes as OpenAI reportedly decided to scrap the release of its next model, Astra 6.1. The Wall Street Journal reported that the company originally planned to release the new model in October but changed its mind over "misbehavior."