California Attorney General Rob Bonta said he was “encouraged” by a recent talk with OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman and actions the company has taken in the wake of a lawsuit alleging ChatGPT guided a teenager to suicide.
In an interview with Bloomberg News in New York on Tuesday, Bonta said he recently spoke with Altman and other leaders of the artificial intelligence startup about the suit, as well as other reports of harms related to kids’ use of chatbots. Bonta said the company was responsive to his concerns about the safety of children who use ChatGPT, and he thinks OpenAI is working quickly and urgently to make changes to the popular service.
“They put some of their top people in a room with us to talk about what they were doing, including Mr. Altman,” Bonta said. “I felt he was authentically committed to addressing the challenges that we flagged.”
An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed that Altman and other senior executives at the company, including its CEO of Applications Fidji Simo, met with Bonta this month.
After the family of Adam Raine sued the artificial intelligence startup and Altman in August over the California high school student’s death, OpenAI announced a slew of changes to ChatGPT, including parent controls. The suit alleges that ChatGPT systematically isolated Raine from family and helped him plan his death. He died by hanging in April.
In a statement, the OpenAI spokesperson said it prioritizes user safety and agreed that when it comes to teens, the standards of privacy and freedom of use should be set differently than for adults. The company also noted that, in addition to the parental controls, it’s also working on software to predict a user’s age.
Bonta noted that OpenAI has an incentive beyond user safety to make changes to ChatGPT. OpenAI, which was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit dedicated to advancing AI to benefit humanity, is in the midst of a restructuring effort to convert into a more traditional for-profit company. As part of this realignment, Bonta and Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings are reviewing its proposed financial and governance changes.
The offices of Bonta and Jennings sent a joint letter to OpenAI’s board on Sept. 5 raising concerns about recent reports of how the company’s products interact with users, and children in particular.
Bonta said OpenAI needs to analyze how the incident with Raine happened “and make sure it doesn’t happen again.” He added that he thinks the company should verify the ages of users as well.
ChatGPT has more than 700 million weekly users. While Bonta acknowledged that perfection is “impossible,” he added that “having Adam Raine kill himself is also avoidable.”
OpenAI is incorporated in Delaware, but based in California.
Top photo: Rob Bonta Photographer: Loren Elliott/Bloomberg.
Topics Lawsuits California
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