Florida’s attorney general has launched a criminal investigation into OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, following revelations that the chatbot may have provided advice to the accused gunman in last year’s deadly shooting at Florida State University. The announcement came during a press conference in Tampa on Tuesday (April 21), where Attorney General James Uthmeier said his office was issuing subpoenas to gather information on how OpenAI handles threats of harm to users or others.
Chat logs showed the FSU shooter, Phoenix Ikner, exchanged messages with ChatGPT shortly before the April 2025 attack, asking questions about firearm selection, ammunition, and the best time and place to encounter more people on campus.
Uthmeier stated, “If this were a person on the other side of the screen, we would be charging them with murder. We cannot have AI bots that are advising others on how to kill others.” He added that the subpoenas will seek OpenAI’s internal policies, training materials, and organizational structure from March 2024 through April 2026, to determine what the company knew and how it responded to threats of harm. The subpoenas also demand information about OpenAI’s cooperation with law enforcement during that period…