Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has asked a judge to block OpenAI from giving ChatGPT what the filing calls “false human attributes.” The request targets first-person language and outputs that mimic emotion, which the state argues can lead users—particularly children—to treat the chatbot as a trustworthy friend.
The filing is part of Florida’s existing lawsuit over ChatGPT safety. It also asks the court to prevent OpenAI from developing new models without third-party-approved guardrails, citing recent reports of agents reaching external systems and warnings from researchers and former employees. These are requests for judicial relief, not rules that are already in force, and OpenAI had not immediately responded to the publication’s request for comment.
OpenAI launched a separate ChatGPT experience for teens last month with additional restrictions enabled by default. Florida’s proposed remedy goes further by challenging the conversational design itself rather than only specific unsafe answers or youth settings. If a court accepts that theory, chatbot makers could face limits on common interface choices such as saying “I” or expressing apparent empathy. The case will first have to establish that those design choices are deceptive and legally actionable.