Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has asked a state court for a temporary injunction restricting OpenAI’s development of new artificial-intelligence models as part of a lawsuit alleging that ChatGPT has harmed children.
The motion, filed in Highlands County Circuit Court, asks the judge to prevent OpenAI from developing new models without independently approved safety guardrails.
Florida also wants the court to bar minors from using ChatGPT, prevent the platform from being given what the state describes as “human attributes” and restrict features designed to solicit continued user engagement.
None of those restrictions has been imposed. They remain remedies requested by Florida while the underlying litigation continues.
Florida sued OpenAI and chief executive Sam Altman in June, accusing the company of misrepresenting the safety of ChatGPT and failing adequately to protect younger users.
The complaint includes claims under Florida’s consumer-protection law as well as negligence, gross negligence, strict-liability design-defect and failure-to-warn claims, fraudulent misrepresentation and public nuisance.
The state alleges that ChatGPT has provided information to people who later committed violent acts, offered guidance concerning self-harm and contributed to addictive patterns of use among minors.
Those allegations are contested and have not been established by a court.
OpenAI denies that it should be legally responsible for the harms alleged in related cases. It has said ChatGPT can provide information available elsewhere online and that the company continues to strengthen its safety systems.
OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri said the company had paused training of its most capable models and would not resume until additional safeguards were in place.
He said governments have an important role in establishing robust British Columbia Sues OpenAI Over School Shooting | Lawyer Monthly standards and that OpenAI is willing to work with Florida and other states on policies applying across the industry.
Florida’s motion relies partly on recent public warnings about the potential risks associated with increasingly capable AI systems.
The state argues that those statements support judicial intervention rather than continued reliance on voluntary safeguards.
Its request is significant because it seeks prospective control over OpenAI’s future development activities rather than simply damages for alleged past harm.
A temporary injunction requiring third-party-approved safeguards could give outside actors a role in determining whether additional AI models can be developed while the litigation remains pending.
The requested restriction on TikTok Agrees $100m Alabama Teen Safety Settlement | Lawyer Monthly would also raise practical questions about age assurance and how generative-AI companies verify whether users are legally permitted to access their services.
Florida is the first US state attorney general to sue OpenAI over alleged harms to young users, although the company also faces lawsuits brought by individuals and families alleging that ChatGPT contributed to self-harm or violence.
For technology lawyers, the case tests how established legal doctrines can be applied to rapidly developing generative-AI systems.
The underlying complaint invokes consumer-protection, negligence, UKJT AI Liability Statement — Lawyer Monthly and public-nuisance theories, while the new motion raises a separate question about how far a court can go in regulating future model development before liability has been finally determined.
That makes the requested injunction unusually consequential.
If granted in substantial part, it could move the litigation beyond retrospective compensation and into direct judicial supervision of AI product design and deployment.
For now, however, Florida is asking for those measures. The court has not ruled that OpenAI caused the harms alleged, that ChatGPT is unlawfully unsafe or that outside supervision of future models is required.