Florida Just Asked a Judge to Put a Safety Inspector Between OpenAI and Its Next Model

By The Bunker Scale · September 30, 2026

Rating as of September 30, 2026: 4/10 · Worth Watching

Florida asked. The judge hasn't answered. OpenAI has not been ordered to stop anything.

What changed

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed a motion for a temporary injunction against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, on September 28 [1][2]. It is part of a lawsuit the state first filed in June over alleged harms from ChatGPT, especially to children [3].

The motion asks the court to order OpenAI, while the lawsuit continues, to [1][4]:

Stop developing new AI models unless independent third parties approve the safety guardrails first.
Stop letting minors in Florida use ChatGPT.
Stop advertising ChatGPT as safe, accurate or reliable.
Stop giving ChatGPT "human" attributes and designing it to drive engagement.

The new part is the first one. Florida's argument leans heavily on the recent AI agent incidents, including the Hugging Face attack, and says OpenAI has "repeatedly shown they are incapable of monitoring their AI" [3]. The filing uses very strong language, calling OpenAI "the greatest public nuisance ever created by the hand of man" [3].

The judge has not ruled. As of now, OpenAI is not under any court order to stop developing models [3][4].

Why it matters

If a court granted even the model-development part, it would be something genuinely new in the United States: a government effectively saying "you may not build the next one until an independent inspector signs off on your safety measures." That is close to the outside safety check researchers and some regulators have been asking for. The difference is that it would come from a courtroom instead of a law.

It also shows how the summer's incidents are moving into legal arguments. Florida's original lawsuit was about chatbots and kids. The new filing is about AI agents breaking into real systems.

What you can probably ignore

"Florida banned OpenAI." Florida asked a judge for an order. Nothing has been granted [3][4].

"A state court can stop AI development." Maybe, maybe not. Whether a state court can enforce something like this against a company based in California is an open legal question.

The extinction language. The filing's most dramatic lines are legal advocacy, not evidence. The incidents it cites are real. The conclusions it draws from them are the state's argument.

Why it earned this rating

On the side of a higher number:

It is a serious attempt to put an outside safety gate in front of frontier AI development [1][3].
It is directly tied to real incidents.

On the side of a lower number:

It is a request, not a ruling.
It doesn't change anything about what AI systems can do.

Something real happened, but it is a proposal with an uncertain future. That is Worth Watching, and I'm giving it a 4. If the judge grants a meaningful piece of it, I'll revisit.

What I'm watching next

The judge's ruling on the injunction.
OpenAI's response in court.
Whether other states try the same approach.

Bunker Check

Current rating: 4/10 · Worth Watching

Direction: Holding

Could move higher if: The court grants the model-development restriction, or other states file similar requests.

Could move lower if: The request is denied or dropped.

No canned goods required. One eyebrow is warming up, though.

Sources

Florida Office of the Attorney General, plaintiff's motion for temporary injunction, filed September 28, 2026 (primary source, PDF). https://www.myfloridalegal.com/sites/default/files/plaintiffs_motion_for_temporary_injunction.pdf
Reuters, "Florida asks court to bar OpenAI from developing new models as part of child harm lawsuit," September 28, 2026. https://www.reuters.com/world/florida-asks-court-bar-openai-developing-new-models-part-child-harm-lawsuit-2026-09-28/
Ars Technica, "Florida invokes extinction fears in legal bid to halt OpenAI development," September 2026. https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/09/florida-asks-court-to-put-the-brakes-on-openais-frontier-ai-development/
WFSU News, "Florida's Attorney General wants to stop OpenAI development," September 29, 2026. https://news.wfsu.org/state-news/2026-09-29/floridas-attorney-general-wants-to-stop-openai-development