New Delhi: Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has opened an investigation into OpenAI over whether the company “bears criminal responsibility” for a shooting at Florida State University last year.
The attorney general’s office said it is investigating whether OpenAI’s ChatGPT helped the suspect, Phoenix Ikner, in carrying out the crime. “If that bot were a person, they would be charged with a principal in first-degree murder,” Attorney General Uthmeier said at a press conference on Tuesday.
Investigation opens against Open AI
The Attorney General said that the killer submitted multiple queries to ChatGPT prior to the shooting. It is alleged that ChatGPT “advised” the shooter on weapons and ammunition, “what time of day would be appropriate for the shooting to interact with more people, and where on campus would be the place to encounter a higher population.”
While there have been several lawsuits against AI companies, a criminal investigation is uncommon. Also, this is not the first time ChatGPT has been accused of helping a suspect plan a mass shooting, as its role was also questioned after a shooting in British Columbia, Canada, earlier this year.
The Attorney General further said that OpenAI has been subpoenaed for information about “policies and internal training materials regarding user threats of harm to others” and self-harm. It is also being asked of the company to provide information relating to policies that exist for reporting possible crimes.
“We’re going to look at who knew what, designed what or should have known what and if it is clear that individuals knew that this type of dangerous behavior might take place,” Uthmeier further added.
Open AI clarifies
An OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement to CNN that the shooting “was a tragedy, but ChatGPT is not responsible for this terrible crime.” OpenAI “proactively” shared the account believed to be linked to Ikner with law enforcement after the shooting, the spokesperson added. “In this case, ChatGPT provided factual responses to questions with information that could be found broadly across public sources on the internet, and it did not encourage or promote illegal or harmful activity,” the spokesperson explained.
What was the Florida State University shooting incident?
The 2025 Florida State University shooting was a mass shooting that took place on April 17, 2025, at the university’s campus in Tallahassee, Florida. A 20-year-old student opened fire near the Student Union, killing two people and injuring several others.
The attack unfolded around midday, triggering a campus-wide lockdown as students fled or hid, before police arrived and shot and detained the suspect. Authorities later charged him with multiple counts of murder and attempted murder. The incident sparked broader debates in the US about campus safety, gun violence, and in relation to the current inquiry, over concerns relating to possible misuse of AI tools in planning such attacks.