{"id":205507,"date":"2026-04-22T00:48:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T00:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/205507\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T00:48:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T00:48:24","slug":"florida-inquiry-into-chatgpts-role-in-fsu-shooting-shifts-to-criminal-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/205507\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Inquiry Into ChatGPT\u2019s Role in FSU Shooting Shifts to Criminal Investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida\u2019s attorney general said on Tuesday that the state had opened a criminal investigation into ChatGPT and its parent company, OpenAI, based on a review of messages between the chatbot and the man accused of killing two people at Florida State University<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

The attorney general, James Uthmeier<\/a>, a Republican, said the messages suggested that ChatGPT \u201coffered significant advice to the shooter before he committed such heinous crimes.\u201d He pointed to several exchanges, including ones in which the suspect asked about a gun\u2019s power at short range and which ammunition might be used for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy prosecutors have looked at this, and they\u2019ve told me if it was a person on the other end of the screen, we would be charging them with murder,\u201d Mr. Uthmeier said at a news conference in Tampa.<\/p>\n

Two adults died and six other people, including at least one student, were injured last April at the shooting near the student union at Florida State, a public university with an enrollment of more than 43,000 in Tallahassee. The suspect, Phoenix Ikner<\/a>, who was then a 20-year-old student at the university, faces multiple charges of murder and attempted murder and is in jail awaiting trial.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors have gathered as evidence messages that the suspect exchanged with ChatGPT. On the day of the shooting, he asked the chatbot how the country would react to a shooting at Florida State and when the busiest time was at the student union, according to messages obtained by The New York Times through a public records request.<\/p>\n

Mr. Uthmeier first announced<\/a> on April 9 that his office would be opening an investigation into OpenAI and ChatGPT. On Tuesday, he said a civil investigation that his office initiated early this month into the company\u2019s potential liability would continue, along with the criminal investigation.<\/p>\n

OpenAI said in a statement that it was cooperating with the authorities but was accepting no blame for the incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year\u2019s mass shooting at Florida State University was a tragedy, but ChatGPT is not responsible for this terrible crime,\u201d the statement said. \u201cIn this case, ChatGPT provided factual responses to questions with information that could be found broadly across public sources on the internet, and it did not encourage or promote illegal or harmful activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

(The Times has sued<\/a> OpenAI, claiming copyright infringement; OpenAI has denied the claims.)<\/p>\n

Mr. Uthmeier acknowledged on Tuesday that OpenAI is a company, not a person, and said that exploring potential criminal culpability against the company would be novel legal territory.<\/p>\n

But he also said that he had a duty to find out whether \u201chuman beings may have been involved in the design, management and operation\u201d of the chatbot to the point that it would \u201cwarrant criminal liability.\u201d His office plans to subpoena OpenAI for records, including policies and internal training documents regarding the possibility of users threatening harm to themselves or others, he said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Uthmeier was named attorney general by Gov. Ron DeSantis last year and is running for a full term this year.<\/p>\n

Mr. DeSantis, a fellow Republican, has championed legislation<\/a> reining in the power of artificial intelligence, a position that has put him at odds with the White House\u2019s more pro-A.I. approach. The governor has called on state lawmakers to set guardrails for the use of A.I. in a special session next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida\u2019s attorney general said on Tuesday that the state had opened a criminal investigation into ChatGPT and its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[66,4410,1692,3640,10587,81492,1443,9,11,10,15460,24646,81493,20199],"class_list":{"0":"post-205507","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-artificial-intelligence","9":"tag-chatgpt","10":"tag-colleges-and-universities","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-florida-state-university","13":"tag-ikner","14":"tag-james","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-headlines","17":"tag-new-york-news","18":"tag-openai-labs","19":"tag-phoenix","20":"tag-tallahassee-fla","21":"tag-uthmeier"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}