Florida AG announces investigation into OpenAI over shooting that allegedly involved ChatGPT

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced Thursday that his office planned to investigate OpenAI over ChatGPT’s alleged role in a fatal shooting last year.

In April 2025, a gunman opened fire on the campus of Florida State University, killing two people and wounding five. Last week, lawyers arrived for one of the shooting victims claimed that ChatGPT was used to plan the attack. The victim’s family said this plan to sue OpenAI over the incident.

“AI should advance humanity, not destroy it,” Uthmeier said in a statement posted on Uthmeier added in a video that subpoenas were “imminent” as part of the investigation.

ChatGPT has been linked to a growing number of deaths and violent incidents – including murders, suicides and shootings – and has heightened concerns about the arrival of what psychologists call ‘AI psychosis’, delusions that are reinforced, encouraged or deepened by communication with chatbots.

For example, Stein-Erik Soelberg, a man with a history of mental health problems, had communicated regularly with ChatGPT before killing his mother and then himself last year, according to a Wall Street Journal report. research. The chatbot seemed to do that often reinforce paranoid thoughts that consumed him in the lead-up to the murder-suicide.

When contacted by TechCrunch for comment, an OpenAI spokesperson issued the following statement: “Every week, more than 900 million people use ChatGPT to improve their daily lives through applications like learning new skills or navigating complex healthcare systems. Our ongoing security work continues to play an important role in delivering these benefits to everyday people, as well as supporting scientific research and discovery. We’re building ChatGPT to understand people’s intentions and respond in safe and appropriate ways, and we continue to advance our technology We will cooperate with the Attorney General’s investigation.”

Florida’s investigation continues a series of setbacks for OpenAI. A New Yorker Profile about Sam Altman published earlier this week showed criticism and dissatisfaction within the company and among its investors, even quoting a Microsoft executive as said: “I think there’s a small but real chance that he’ll end up being remembered as a Bernie Madoff or Sam Bankman-Fried-level con artist.” Meanwhile, a Stargate-related project in Britain had to be interruptedreportedly due to high energy costs and regulations.