Florida has been home to some high-profile deaths tied to the use of artificial intelligence and State Attorney General James Uthmeier wants to figure out what is going on. Florida’s top prosecutor announced Tuesday that his office is launching an investigation into OpenAI to determine if the company should face any criminal liability for the deaths tied to its popular chatbot.
Uthmeier’s announcement makes good on his previous promise to investigate OpenAI. The probe will focus primarily on a mass shooting on the Florida State University campus in Tallahassee on April 20, 2025, in which a student gunman opened fire, killing two and injuring six. Earlier this month, an attorney representing the family of one of the people killed in the shooting announced intentions to sue OpenAI after learning the shooter was allegedly in “constant communication with ChatGPT leading up to the shooting.” That seems to have spurred Florida’s Attorney General into action, as Uthmeier revealed plans to investigate OpenAI just days later.
Not much is known publicly at this point about the involvement of ChatGPT in the shooting, though the attorney for the family of one of the victims told the Tallahassee Democrat, “We also have reason to believe that ChatGPT may have advised the shooter how to commit these heinous crimes.” In a statement, Attorney General Uthmeiter explained, “This criminal investigation will determine whether OpenAI bears criminal responsibility for ChatGPT’s actions in the shooting at Florida State University last year.” He also said, “If ChatGPT were a person, it would be facing charges for murder.”
Per the AG’s office, it has already subpoenaed OpenAI for information, including “all policies and internal training materials” regarding user threats of harm to others, user threats of harm to self, and “cooperation with law enforcement, including policies for the reporting of possible past, present, or future crime.” It has also requested organizational charts listing “executives, directors, department heads, and/or senior managers of OpenAI” at the time of the shooting and “a listing of all employees, including affiliated departments and titles or role description(s), within ChatGPT.”
Gizmodo reached out to OpenAI for comment regarding the investigation, but did not receive a response at the time of publication.
While the investigation appears to be narrowly focused on the FSU shooting, it’s possible—even likely—that Uthmeier’s office will be back for more. In the lead-up to this investigation, the AG said he would seek to discover how AI contributes to “child sex abuse material” and the “encouragement of suicide and self-harm.” A Florida family is currently engaged in a wrongful death lawsuit against a different AI company, Character.ai, following the suicide of their teenage son. Another Florida family has sued Google over the death of their 36-year-old son, who reportedly was encouraged to kill himself by Gemini.
Uthmeier has also expressed an interest in investigating the risk of AI “falling into the hands of America’s enemies, such as the Chinese Communist Party,” which frankly seems less pressing than the apparent ongoing epidemic of AI psychosis currently being brought on by American companies. Maybe stick to the domestic threats, man, you’ve got plenty to work with.
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