A police vehicle parked outside a high school, the site of a deadly mass shooting in the town of Tumbler Ridge, B.C., on Feb. 11.Jennifer Gauthier/Reuters
One day after an 18-year-old killed six people in a school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, tech giant OpenAI did not disclose in a pre-planned meeting with the B.C. government that months earlier it had suspended the shooter’s account due to concerning conversations with its AI chatbot, the province said in a statement Saturday.
Instead, OpenAI waited until the next day before asking their provincial contact to help connect company officials with the RCMP, Premier David Eby’s office said.
The dead included five students and a teacher’s aide at the school, and the shooter’s mother and half-brother at a residence. The shooter, who RCMP have identified as Jesse Van Rootselaar, then killed herself.
Tumbler Ridge shooter’s ChatGPT messages were flagged months before attack
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Open AI employees wanted the company to alert police in June over the shooter’s posts involving gun violence but they were rebuffed.
“Reports that allege OpenAI had related intelligence before the shootings in Tumbler Ridge took place are profoundly disturbing for the victims’ families and all British Columbians,” Mr. Eby said in the statement.
“The pain that these families have gone through is unimaginable.”
Mr. Eby said police are working to preserve any potential evidence related to the shootings and held by digital services companies, including social media platforms and AI companies.
“We will use all powers of government to ensure that police have the tools they need to investigate every aspect of this horrific tragedy,” he said.
The mass shooting occurred on Tuesday, Feb. 10.
On Feb. 11, a B.C. government representative met with staff from the San Francisco tech giant to discuss the company’s interest in opening a satellite office in Canada.
On Feb. 12, OpenAI requested contact information for the RCMP.
“OpenAI did not inform any member of government that they had potential evidence regarding the shootings in Tumbler Ridge,” the Premier’s statement said.
OpenAI confirmed Friday that the shooter had been banned from using its ChatGPT chatbot last June after her posts were flagged by OpenAI’s automatic screening systems.
The company said in a statement it “proactively reached out” to the Mounties after the shooting and gave them information on the shooter’s use of ChatGPT, but it did not say when this happened.
The Globe and Mail has requested comment from OpenAI on why it took two days to relay its evidence to the RCMP. The company did not immediately respond.
OpenAI also said in its Friday statement that for posts to trigger a referral to law enforcement, they must indicate “an imminent and credible risk of serious physical harm to others.”
Last June, the statement said, the company did not identify “credible or imminent planning.”
The statement said the risk of over-reporting to law enforcement can cause “distress” to a young person and family if officers show up unannounced. It can also “introduce unintended harm” and prompt privacy concerns, the statement said.
It also noted that ChatGPT is trained to discourage posters from intending harm and “to avoid providing advice that could result in immediate physical harm to an individual.”
The statement said the company regularly reviews its policies on alerting law enforcement. It did not say whether the shooting would prompt a review.
“Our thoughts are with everyone affected by the Tumbler Ridge tragedy,” the company said in the statement. It also said the company would continue to support police in their investigation.
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The RCMP confirmed Friday that OpenAI contacted its investigators after the shooting.
RCMP Staff Sergeant Kris Clark said a “thorough review of the content on electronic devices, as well as social media and online activities” of the shooter is taking place.
He said “digital and physical evidence is being collected, prioritized, and methodically processed.”
Chris McBryan, a former RCMP member who served with the Canadian Firearms Program before retiring a decade ago, said although the shooter is dead, the RCMP will likely be working to determine whether anyone else was involved in planning.
RCMP Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald said last week that of the two firearms used at the school, police are unsure of the origins of the one that caused the most damage and had never been seized by police.
“We’re trying to determine how the suspect got that firearm. The investigation is continuing.”
McBryan said figuring out where the weapons of unknown origin came from, and whether any crimes were committed by other people in relation to those weapons, would likely be a key focus of the ongoing investigation.
With reports from Joe Castaldo and The Canadian Press