Opinion · October 25, 2026
Ken Paxton has taken ChatGPT to court. The useful response is neither automatic applause for the attorney general nor automatic faith in the company. Both have a story they want the public to accept. A lawsuit should be where those stories meet evidence, not where one publicity operation replaces the other.
What Texas announced
In an October 23 announcement, Paxton’s office said it sued OpenAI, affiliated entities and CEO Sam Altman over alleged harms and misleading product representations. The announcement is the plaintiff’s account. Its accusations are not findings of liability, and the existence of the suit does not establish that every alleged harm occurred as described.
That qualification matters. So does refusing to wave away the questions merely because the official asking them is politically divisive. Product safety should not depend on whether the messenger is somebody’s favorite politician.
Marketing is not a safety test
When a product can speak with apparent confidence and warmth, users need to understand what it can get wrong. A reassuring brand personality does not establish reliability. Nor does a disclaimer, by itself, explain whether the product was designed and tested responsibly for the people likely to use it.
Companies should be able to substantiate claims about safeguards and performance. Investigators should be able to specify the representation, the evidence and the alleged failure without relying on a collection of frightening anecdotes as a substitute for causation.
Make both sides do the work
A court can test allegations, hear defenses and distinguish marketing overreach from conduct that actually supports legal relief. The rest of us should demand that level of specificity rather than adopting the most dramatic headline as our conclusion.
Our view is straightforward: powerful technology companies do not get immunity because the product is impressive, and attorneys general do not get automatic credibility because the complaint is angry. Show the tests. Show the claims. Show the evidence connecting one to the other. The public deserves more than a chatbot answer and a campaign-style press release shouting over it.
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