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 open government
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 we begin with
Colorado, where we just had an open courts win in the
District of Colorado (involving United Airlines and
discrimination, here).
Inner City Press filed a
request with AG Phil Weiser's office under the Colorado
Open Records Act (CORA), C.R.S. § 24-72-201 et seq. (CORA)
for, among other things
"All records since January 1, 2023,
reflecting consumer complaints received by the Colorado
AG's Consumer Protection Section from Colorado residents
regarding: • OpenAI's
ChatGPT, including complaints about harm to minors or
vulnerable users, mental health impacts, sycophancy, data
privacy violations, deceptive outputs, and compulsive
use; • Any AI chatbot or conversational AI
service, including Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini,
Anthropic Claude, Meta AI, xAI Grok, Character.AI,
Replika, or similar services; • AI-generated
content used for fraud or consumer deception, including AI
voice cloning scams and deepfake fraud; and •
Any complaint in which a consumer identified AI chatbot
outputs as contributing to financial loss, self-harm,
suicidal ideation, or dangerous
behavior.
"For each category: (a) total complaints
received; (b) number referred to other agencies; (c)
number resulting in enforcement action; and (d) any
aggregate trend analysis. Individual complaints may be
produced with personal identifying information redacted
under C.R.S. § 24-72-204.
AI Data Centers in Colorado — Consumer,
Energy, and Community Impact
Records Colorado's Front Range —
particularly the Northern Colorado corridor including
Loveland, Fort Collins, and the Denver-Boulder metro area
— has experienced rapid AI and technology data center
growth, with major facilities from Microsoft, Google, and
other operators drawing on Xcel Energy Colorado's grid and
Colorado's water resources in an arid state already under
stress from drought and population growth. Inner City
Press requests all records since January 1, 2024,
reflecting consumer complaints received by, or enforcement
activity undertaken by, the Colorado AG's office relating
to AI data centers, including:
• All consumer or community complaints regarding AI
data center operations in Colorado, including complaints
about: energy consumption and its effect on Xcel Energy
Colorado utility rates and grid reliability; water
consumption for cooling and its effect on Colorado water
rights and Front Range water supplies; noise, light, or
other environmental impacts on neighboring communities in
Loveland, Fort Collins, the Denver metro, or elsewhere,"
etc.
Weiser's office wrote back with a series of
URLs to public website (which do not contain the above
information) and a statement that "We have no other
public records responsive to your request. See C.R.S. §§
5-6- 106(4), 6-1-111(2). Under C.R.S. § 24-72-205, we are
entitled to reimbursement for reasonable costs associated
with copying expenses and for staff time. Your request did
not result in any charges due. Sincerely, FOR THE ATTORNEY
GENERAL LAWRENCE PACHECO Director of
Communications"
The incongruity of "no other public
records" was striking so Inner City Press wrote back:
"Inner City Press understands that §
6-1-111(2) of the Colorado Consumer Protection Act
protects the confidentiality of individual investigation
files. However, several of the request's categories do not
appear to fall within that exemption: Category A
sought records of Colorado's participation in the 42-state
coalition investigation of OpenAI — specifically,
inter-governmental communications with other state AG
offices and NAAG. Coalition coordination records between
state attorneys general are not investigative files within
the meaning of § 6-1-111(2); they are inter-governmental
policy communications. Category D sought aggregate
statistics — total numbers of AI consumer complaints
received, referred, and acted upon — not individual
complaint records. Aggregate data does not identify any
individual complainant and does not constitute an
investigation file. Category F sought records
relating to AI data center impacts on Colorado consumers
and ratepayers — communications with the Colorado Public
Utilities Commission, the Colorado Energy Office, and data
center operators about energy rates and community impact.
These are regulatory communications, not consumer
protection investigation records. Inner City Press
would ask for a further response indicating whether the §
6-1-111(2) exemption is being applied to those specific
categories, or whether they were simply not located."
No answer to that. Just a one
liner from Weiser's director of communication, who
apparently doubles as the office's CORA officer: "As
stated in our response, there are no additional public
records responsive to your request."
We'll have more on this.
