This April 21, the Florida Attorney General announced a criminal investigation against the company OpenAI and your ChatGPT toolbecause accuses the application of “giving advice” to a shooter responsible for an attack in 2025 that left two people dead.
“Florida is leading the way in crack down on the use of AI in criminal behavior, and if ChatGPT were a person, he would be facing murder charges”stated prosecutor James Uthmeier.
The case dates back to April 2025, when the shooter, a 21-year-old man named Phoenix Ikner, reportedly started a shooting at Florida State University. where two people died and seven were injured.
According to the prosecution, the investigation reviewed a “conversation” that Ikner would have had with ChatGPT, in which the application would have “given advice” to carry out the shooting.
According to Uthmeier, the application of AI “would have given significant advice to the shooter before committing such heinous crimes“, and detailed that, among these, ChatGPT would have told him the type of weapon and ammunition that Ikner should use.
The investigation will determine, according to the prosecutor, whether OpenAI has criminal responsibility in the case, because Florida law It is considered a crime to “aid, incite or advise” a person to commit a crime.
Florida authorities indicated that they issued a subpoena to OpenAI to hand over “all internal training policies and materials”, related to the threats and risks that could be generated by the use of the application, as well as data such as the list of directors, managers and workers.
“It is important that we are all aware of the risks of this new technology and the damage it can cause and has already caused in our communities”said Mark Glass, commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE).
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