On AI and Data Center Beat Washington State AG Responds on Expedia Chatbot in Sea of Consumer Records

On AI and Data Center Beat Washington State AG Responds on Expedia Chatbot in Sea of Consumer Records by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack SDNY COURTHOUSE, June 29 —Since first covering the artificial intelligence legal citation hallucination case involving lawyers Peter LoDuca and Steven A. Schwartz in filing against Colombian airline Avianca in 2023, Inner City Press has been on the A.I. beat.    Now in 2026 Inner City Press has submitted a number of freedom of information / state public records law requests to state Attorneys General for complaints about a.i. and about data centers they have received. We have much to report, but today June 29-30 we turn to Washington State. Washington's Office of the Attorney General responded with several large exports from its general Consumer Protection complaint database — not a narrowed set of AI-specific records, but raw data covering complaints across every industry the office handles, from Walmart billing disputes to landscaping companies to local police departments. Searching through these records for the artificial intelligence complaints Inner City Press requested, one stood out: a Washington consumer's complaint that Expedia's AI chatbot, tasked with checking a cancellation policy, instead cancelled the consumer's trip outright. The complainant argued Expedia "has a duty to ensure that its AI chatbot functions properly and does not make mistakes that could harm customers" — a real-world illustration of the kind of AI-deployment harm regulators are only beginning to grapple with. Beyond that single complaint, the broader datasets Washington produced did not surface complaints specifically naming OpenAI, ChatGPT, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Meta AI, or data center operations in the state — though Inner City Press's review is ongoing and Washington's office has not foreclosed further, more targeted production. The Attorney General's office also released its internal Common Exemption Codes reference, the document staff use to mark records as exempt under Washington's Public Records Act — covering attorney-client privilege, attorney work product, and deliberative process exemptions, among others. That document offers a window into how the office processes records requests across the board, not just this one. Inner City Press will continue reporting on AI- and data-center-related public records responses from other states in the coming days  As to Ohio, Inner City Press has filed an appeal with the Attorney General's Office after the office's own June 29 acknowledgment letter, responding to an Inner City Press public records request filed June 20, arrived with what appear to be internal staff notations still attached. The request sought records concerning Ohio's role in the 42-state coalition investigation of OpenAI, consumer complaints about ChatGPT and other AI chatbots, and the Ohio AG's internal analysis of whether existing consumer protection law applies to AI-generated harms. Rather than a clean acknowledgment, the letter that came back included, after nearly every bullet point of the original request, brief notations: "Deny 1345.05," "Deny common interest," "Deny work product," "Deny overbroad," "Deny deliberative process privilege," among others.  Inner City Press has appealed each of these on the merits. Among the grounds: Ohio Revised Code 1345.05 protects materials obtained through civil investigative demands, not run-of-the-mill coordination records between state attorneys general; "common interest" and "work product" are litigation doctrines, not enumerated exemptions under Ohio's Public Records Act; and the Ohio Supreme Court rejected a generalized "deliberative process" privilege under that Act nearly three decades ago in State ex rel. Gannett Satellite Information Network v. Petro. The letter also flagged two categories of records as "FIND & PRODUCE" — meaning the office's own review already concluded those materials are responsive and should be released. Inner City Press has asked that those be produced within five business days, without waiting for a fuller dispute over the rest.  Inner City Press has posted the Ohio AG's acknowledgment letter to its DocumentCloud here *** Your support means a lot. As little as $5 a month helps keep us going and grants you access to exclusive bonus material on our Patreon page. Click here to become a patron. Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com Mail: Box 130222, Chinatown Station, NY NY 10013 Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.  Copyright 2006-2026 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com