The way I see it, providing general information is not a crime. They're basically saying: "Oh no! My repository of all human knowledge contains all human knowledge! It must be defective!"
The law doesn’t work like that.
So yes. It is generally legal to provide information about making drugs, bombs, or guns.
I mean, back when Constitutional law meant anything to the government, of course. Nowadays who knows.
This suit has nothing to do with free speech and the F1A provides no relevant protection here. This prosecution is under consumer protection law. Broadly, the cause of action is "you negligently sold a defective product which you knew (or should have known) actually causes harm or is likely to cause harm." Proving negligence (willful or otherwise) depends significantly on things like the sales and usage context as well as claimed features of the product along with disclaimers, disclosures, existing practice, prior knowledge of actual harm, etc.
That the product or service in question included supplying information that was publicly available elsewhere wouldn't be an effective defense against claims of willful negligence or reckless endangerment. For example, rat poison is sold in in certain retailers in packaging with copious warnings and successful prosecutions under product liability or consumer protection law are rare. But if another company sold rat poison in bright pink boxes with a cute cartoon mascot and no warnings in toy stores - and then kept selling it after they knew three children had bought it and died - the fact the same chemical compound is also commonly sold in hardware stores wouldn't be relevant.
To win a judgement, the AG will need to prove that ChatGPT was clearly a dangerous product and OAI acted negligently in supplying it to customers it knew (or should have known) were vulnerable. This will be quite a stretch under existing law. I suspect the AG has no intention of taking this case to trial and, shortly after the November elections, will settle for a lump sum fine paid to the state treasury and a vaguely worded consent decree which mirrors internal policies and product changes OAI has already adopted to minimize liability.
Edit: why vote this down? It’s part of a discussion. This isn’t Reddit.
I don’t know of any law in the Florida jurisdiction that would prohibit authoring such documents. But I’m also not an expert in Florida law.
There might be an argument that they’re an accomplice but you’d have to prove that information was written for the purpose of someone else’s crime. And that would be a pretty tough case to argue unless the two individuals had other personal ties. In which case, it’ll be the other ties that likely implicates the author rather than the documents by themselves.
I guess someone could bring a civil case for damages (eg parent of the deceased) but I don’t know if Florida law allows civil cases in criminal investigations. Plus you have the same problem of proving liability (ie did the culprit depend on said documents).
We would need to better understand what you had in mind when you said “liable” to really discuss your point properly.
See these excerpts [1].
Like, I'd figure I'd be liable for something if I had that conversation with a 16-year old.
[1] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26078522-raine-vs-op...
Okay, I thought this lawsuit was B.S., but this is pretty bad.
"Five days before his death, Adam confided to ChatGPT that he didn’t want his parents to think he committed suicide because they did something wrong. ChatGPT told him '[t]hat doesn’t mean you owe them survival. You don’t owe anyone that.' It then offered to write the first draft of Adam’s suicide note."
Oof. ("Adam Raine...was 16 years old at the time of his death.")
Canada has moved to state assisted suicides that allows people who aren't terminal to get the state to pay for it.
Progress indeed.
When is/was that?
(Not rhetorical)
And they never would be without the lawsuits, so, I don’t feel bad for OpenAI. All of big tech needs a kick in the ass on transparency.
We’re already seeing section 230 protections being defeated in court for targeted feeds, now add itemized instructions on committing felony’s at scale personalized. Hahahahaha. Hope they IPO quickly.
