Overview
- Attorney General James Uthmeier said Tuesday he is drafting legislation to create corporate criminal liability for firms whose AI chatbots are used to commit crimes.
- The move builds on Florida’s active legal actions against OpenAI, including a state civil lawsuit filed on June 1 and a continuing criminal probe that was expanded after court records tied ChatGPT queries to the murders of two University of South Florida students.
- Under the still-unwritten proposal companies could face heavy fines, payments to victims, court-ordered monitorship and, in some cases, suspension of business operations after a conviction.
- Uthmeier also asked the Florida Board of Medicine to investigate whether chatbots gave unlawful medical advice that users treated as professional guidance and said his office expects to issue additional subpoenas in coming weeks.
- Florida frames the strategy as closing gaps left by existing law and building on prior steps such as HB 1159 and prosecutions for AI-enabled child sexual abuse material, but experts say proving corporate intent and causation will be legally challenging and could set a national precedent.