Texan Senate Candidate Sues OpenAI Before Midterms, Accuses Altman Of ‘Lying To Users And Harming Texans’

Texas Attorney General and Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton revealed on Friday that he would be suing artificial intelligence research company OpenAI, the creator of widely-used chatbot ChatGPT, because of the alleged harm the chatbot is causing Texans.

"Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Open AI Global, LLC ("OpenAI") and its affiliated entities, including its CEO Sam Altman, for imposing negative side effects on consumers. Despite marketing itself as a safe and reliable tool, OpenAI has failed to protect Texans, including Children, from the many harms of relying on its artificial intelligence chatbot, ChatGPT," a press release published on Friday said.

Texas is not the only state to have made such a move. A coalition of states comprising Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Iowa, Kansas, West Virginia and Nebraska also sued Altman's organization last month, arguing that the company violated their states' consumer protection laws and endangered children.

Florida also sued in June, citing similar concerns that the company promoted a product it knew would harm its customers.

The Texas lawsuit was filed because OpenAI's allegedly violated the "Texas Deceptive Trade Practices," (DTPA) by engaging "in false, deceptive, and misleading acts and practices in the course of trade and commerce," the lawsuit read.

The lawsuit exemplifies the growing legal pressure that OpenAI faces, as backlash against the unrestrained, unregulated development of AI models grows amongst political leaders.

The lawsuit referenced several high-profile instances of OpenAI agents going rogue and hacking into the websites of private companies and public institutions, including the Australian government, which called upon Altman to appear at a public inquiry on AI after an OpenAI model breached an Australian government health statistics portal.

These cases seem to have caused concern even amongst high-profile tech figures in the AI industry.

Altman himself, along with his competitors Elon Musk (Tesla/SpaceX) and Dario Amodei (Anthropic), has called for putting the brakes on frontier AI development to allow for functioning safety guardrails to be established.

For his part, Paxton has become known for opposing large technology companies; his office has previously sued Meta, TikTok and Snap. His latest attack on OpenAI also contrasts much of the pro-AI rhetoric coming from the top of the administration of President Donald Trump, who has previously called concerns about regulating AI companies and their development of frontier models a "hoax."

Paxton, who is running for Senate in the midterms, faces a significant challenge for the seat from Democrat candidate James Talarico. However, Paxton's latest legal challenge against OpenAI could be well received across the aisle, as Talarico has also made holding big tech platforms accountable a key message of his campaign.

According to polling released on Friday by Texas Public Opinion Research, Talarico is leading Paxton by two percentage points. If Talarico wins, it would be the first time a Texas Democrat has won a Senate election in nearly 40 years.