Florida’s attorney general launches criminal probe into ChatGPT over FSU shooting
Apr 21, 2026, 12:01 PM
FILE - Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier speaks during a news conference at Palm Beach State College in Lake Worth, Fla., Aug. 20, 2025. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP, File)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP, File)
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Florida’s attorney general on Tuesday opened an investigation into OpenAI’s ChatGPT over whether there was criminal behavior involving interactions between the artificial intelligence app and a gunman who killed two people and wounded six others last year at Florida State University.
Attorney General James Uthmeier said that prosecutors had done an initial review of chat logs between ChatGPT and the gunman, Phoenix Ikner, to determine if the AI app aided or abetted the crime.
“This criminal investigation will determine whether OpenAI bears criminal responsibility for ChatGPT’s actions in the shooting at Florida State University last year,” Uthmeier said at a news conference in Tampa.
Florida’s Office of Statewide Prosecution has subpoenaed OpenAI for records of its policies and training materials regarding threats to harm others, and for its policies on reporting “possible past, present, or future crime,” according to the attorney general’s office.
OpenAI spokeswoman Kate Waters called the FSU shooting a tragedy but said the company had no responsibility. The company proactively shared information with law enforcement and continues to cooperate with investigators, she said Tuesday.
“In 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,” Waters said in an email.
Ikner faces two counts of first-degree murder and several counts of attempted first-degree murder in the shooting that terrorized the campus in Florida’s capital city.
Ikner is the stepson of a local sheriff’s deputy, and investigators say he used his stepmother’s former service weapon to carry out the shooting. Prosecutors in the case intend to seek the death penalty.
Uthmeier, a Republican, was named to the position by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, after the GOP governor appointed then-Attorney General Ashley Moody to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Marco Rubio when he became the secretary of state in President Donald Trump’s second administration.
Uthmeier is running in November to be elected to the position on his own.
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Charles Sheehan in New York contributed to this report.
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