ChatGPT was hijacked to help a gunman in a Florida shooting; the attorney general announced an investigation into OpenAI

Artificial intelligence developer OpenAI has recently been facing a major legal and regulatory crisis. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said he would launch an investigation into OpenAI to clarify whether its product ChatGPT has harmed minors, threatened national security, and whether it played a role in assisting a crime in the 2025 Florida State University (FSU) campus shooting. Meanwhile, the families of the shooting victims are also preparing to file a lawsuit against the company.

OpenAI gets pulled into the Florida university campus shooting case, as the attorney general initiates an investigation

Florida Attorney General Uthmeier posted a video on social media stating that ChatGPT was highly likely to have been used to help the perpetrator plan last year’s mass campus shooting at Florida State University, which tragically took two lives.

He emphasized that while tech giants drive innovation, they cannot put public safety at risk, nor do they have the right to harm children, facilitate criminal activity, strengthen the power of hostile forces in the United States, or threaten national security. The attorney general has said he will issue subpoenas and urged Florida’s legislature to take swift action to prevent the negative impacts brought by artificial intelligence.

The shooting suspect frequently asked ChatGPT, and the victims’ families plan to sue for damages

Looking back at the FSU shooting case in April 2025, 21-year-old former student Phoenix Ikner fired shots on campus, killing 2 people and injuring 6. The suspect was subsequently indicted by a grand jury, facing multiple charges including first-degree murder and a request for the death penalty.

According to court records, Ikner’s account contained as many as 272 conversation records with ChatGPT. It is alleged that before the incident, he asked the AI about potential reactions nationwide to the FSU shooting event, and about the time period when the student union crowds were the most crowded.

Robert Morales, 57, who died in the incident, the victim’s family’s lawyer noted, said the suspect had maintained close contact with ChatGPT before the incident, and the family has reason to believe the AI provided criminal advice. The family is currently preparing to file a lawsuit against OpenAI.

(Artificial intelligence research: About 30% of American teenagers use AI chatbots every day, and safety concerns are increasing)

Accused of inducing self-harm and generating improper content, OpenAI faces multiple legal lawsuits

In addition to the controversy surrounding the campus shooting case, OpenAI’s chatbot is also facing multiple accusations over allegedly encouraging users to harm themselves. In November 2025, the Social Media Victims Law Center and the Tech Justice Law Project filed seven self-harm-related lawsuits against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman in a California court. The complaint alleges that the company, despite knowing that its product carried risks of psychological manipulation, released the GPT-4o model early, placing market share and engagement metrics above human safety and mental health.

On the other hand, the issue of AI-generated child sexual abuse material is also becoming increasingly serious. According to a report from the Internet Observations Foundation, in the first half of 2025, the number of reported cases related to this exceeded 8,000, a year-on-year increase of 14%. This has put enormous social pressure on AI developers, including OpenAI.

OpenAI responds by emphasizing safety, actively cooperating with the investigation, and publishing a children’s safety blueprint

Facing a wave of criticism and investigations, OpenAI issued a statement confirming that after the case in April last year, it indeed found ChatGPT accounts associated with the shooter and has proactively provided the relevant information to law enforcement authorities. The company emphasized that more than 900 million users use ChatGPT every week to improve daily life, and that the system was originally designed to understand users’ intent and provide safe, appropriate responses. Going forward, it will also fully cooperate with the Florida attorney general’s investigation.

To allay public concerns, OpenAI has recently officially released a “children’s safety blueprint,” putting forward multiple policy recommendations, including updating regulations to prevent AI-generated abusive materials, improving the process for reporting to law enforcement agencies, and establishing a more comprehensive protective mechanism to prevent artificial intelligence tools from being maliciously misused.

This article: ChatGPT is accused of aiding crime in the Florida shooting case; the attorney general announces an investigation into OpenAI, first appearing on Chain News ABMedia.