On June 13, the Wall Street Journal reported that a coalition of attorneys general from multiple U.S. states had launched an investigation into OpenAI, becoming the latest in a series of legal actions taken by states against AI companies.
OpenAI CEO Altman
According to people familiar with the matter, OpenAI received a subpoena on Friday and was asked to provide documents related to a range of business activities and their impact on users, including advertising operations, user engagement and retention, processing of consumer data and health data, related activities involving minors and the elderly, deep learning models, model flattery, and company policies.
The subpoena was issued by the New York State Attorney General and was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
An OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement:"AI is an emerging and powerful technology, and we are working every day to bring its benefits to the public in a responsible and safe manner. We take the concerns raised by state attorneys general seriously and plan to engage in constructive communication and cooperation with their offices."
This month, OpenAI confidentially submitted IPO application documents to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Earlier this month, Florida became the first state to file a lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman. The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI and Altman released the product despite knowing it contained safety hazards and ignored warnings that the product could cause harm to users.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier launched a criminal investigation into OpenAI in April regarding the company's chatbot's role in a mass shooting at Florida State University last year that left two people dead. It is said that the suspect used ChatGPT as a tool to talk to and seek advice when planning the attack, and the chatbot did provide advice.
U.S. state attorneys general have also been scrutinizing OpenAI’s competitors in the AI industry. In December, a coalition of 42 state attorneys general, led by Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday, sent a letter to companies including OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic, Alphabet's Google and xAI.
In the letter, the attorneys general asked companies to establish safeguards to protect vulnerable users from harmful interactions with chatbots, and warned that "if generative AI products encourage individuals to commit criminal acts, developers may be held legally responsible for the output of their products."
In January this year, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced an investigation into the use of the xAI chatbot Grok to mass-generate pornographic images of women and children. Bonta said the generated content has been used to harass others on Elon Musk's social media platform X.