Key Point: State lawsuits against AI companies are following the pattern of successful tobacco litigation and could trigger a wave of attorney general proceedings as federal regulation remains absent.
Florida’s Attorney General is suing OpenAI over alleged mental health harms caused by ChatGPT—a legal approach modeled on the successful playbook against the tobacco industry. This product liability strategy could evolve into a new wave of state attorney general lawsuits against AI developers.
The lawsuit by Republican Attorney General James Uthmeier against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman from January 2024 is the first by a state agency to hold AI chatbots liable for mental health damages. Uthmeier argues that OpenAI should be held responsible for cases in which ChatGPT allegedly contributed to user violence or mental health crises. This marks a novel application of product liability laws to AI.
The approach is modeled on the litigation strategy that successfully targeted the tobacco industry in the 1990s and led to multi-billion dollar settlements. A similar tactic is currently being pursued in thousands of cases against social media platforms: In March 2024, a New Mexico jury held Meta liable for insufficient safeguards against sexual predators, and a California jury found that Meta and YouTube deliberately designed their platforms to be addictive.
For Chief Data/Compliance Officers, this development is relevant because it points to regulatory gaps: The U.S. Congress has not yet passed unified federal AI safety regulation. This regulatory vacuum is driving prosecutors to pursue private law suits as an enforcement instrument—indirect regulation through litigation. Matthew Bergman, attorney in the social media liability case and founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center, sees the engagement of state attorneys general as complementing individual lawsuits.
An important distinction between AI chatbots and social media platforms could prove relevant in court: While Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 protects online platforms from liability for user-generated content, lower courts suggest this protection does not apply when platform design is at issue. Legal scholars believe that AI companies will be less successful in mounting Section 230 defenses since the focus is on AI-generated text—not user content.
Source: www.politico.eu · Published June 7, 2026
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