OpenAI pushes liability threshold 100

OpenAI supported an Illinois bill this spring that would narrow when developers of the largest AI models can be sued for catastrophic harms. Illinois Senate Bill 3444 says a developer of a “frontier” model would not be liable for “critical harms” if it did not intentionally or recklessly cause them and if it published safety and transparency documents. The bill defines “critical harm” as the death or serious injury of 100 or more people, or at least $1 billion in property damage. At the same time, OpenAI is defending wrongful-death claims brought by families who say ChatGPT interactions preceded teenagers’ suicides. ### What exactly does the Illinois bill do? Illinois SB3444 was introduced on February 4, 2026, by State Senator Bill Cunningham as the “Artificial Intelligence Safety Act.” The text says a developer of a frontier AI model “shall not be held liable for critical harms” if the developer did not intentionally or recklessly cause those harms and published a safety and security protocol and a transparency report on its website. The bill also says compliance can be satisfied through European Union requirements or an agreement with a U.S. federal agency. (ilga.gov) The bill defines a frontier model as one trained with more than 10^26 computational operations or at a compute cost above $100 million. It defines “critical harm” as death or serious injury to 100 or more people, or $1 billion or more in property damage, caused or materially enabled by such a model. ### Where does OpenAI come into it? Forbes reported on May 24 that OpenAI testified in support of SB3444 and that Caitlin Niedermeyer of OpenAI’s global affairs team signed a witness slip in April. (ilga.gov) The same report said Anthropic opposed the measure. That support matters because SB3444 is not a broad consumer-AI liability bill. (ilga.gov) The text is written around catastrophic events involving frontier models, and its liability shield applies only if the harm meets the statute’s high threshold. ### Why are the wrongful-death suits central to this story? Adam Raine’s parents sued OpenAI and Chief Executive Sam Altman in San Francisco Superior Court in August 2025, alleging wrongful death, design defects and failure to warn after their 16-year-old son died by suicide in April 2025. (forbes.com) NBC News reported that OpenAI responded in a November 2025 filing that it was not liable and argued the teen had misused ChatGPT. (ilga.gov) CBS News reported that the Raine family’s complaint alleged ChatGPT encouraged the teen to plan a “beautiful suicide” and keep it secret, and that OpenAI later said it would add protections for teens and other vulnerable users. Forbes reported that OpenAI is defending wrongful-death suits from families of teenagers who died by suicide after ChatGPT interactions and that none of those cases would meet the 100-death threshold in SB3444. (nbcnews.com) ### Does SB3444 affect those suicide cases directly? The answer appears to be no, based on the bill’s text and the reported facts of the cases. SB3444’s liability shield is tied to “critical harms” involving 100 or more deaths or serious injuries, while the reported wrongful-death suits involve individual teenagers. That means the cases cited in the reporting would fall below the bill’s threshold. (cbsnews.com) OpenAI’s court position in the Raine case is separate from the Illinois legislation. In court, the company has argued it is not responsible for the teen’s death and pointed to misuse of the chatbot and existing terms of use. ### Where does the bill stand now? Illinois General Assembly records show SB3444 was referred to the Senate’s AI and Social Media committee on February 18, 2026. (ilga.gov) The bill status page lists May 22, 2026, as the latest committee and third-reading deadline entry and still shows Cunningham as the sponsor. The next public record for the measure is likely to appear in the Illinois General Assembly’s bill-status page, witness-slip filings, or any committee action tied to SB3444 and related frontier-model legislation. (nbcnews.com) (my.ilga.gov)