The Florida AG announced an investigation into OpenAI regarding the shooting allegedly related to ChatGPT

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

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

“AI should advance humanity, not destroy it,” Othmeier said in a statement published on X. “We demand answers about OpenAI’s activities that harmed children, endangered Americans, and facilitated the recent mass shooting in the former Soviet Union. Those who did wrong must be held accountable.” Othmeyer added in a video that subpoenas were “coming” 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 raised concerns about the emergence of what psychologists call “AI psychosis,” delusions that are reinforced, encouraged, or deepened by communications with chatbots.

For example, Stein Erik Solberg, a man with a history of mental health problems, regularly communicated with ChatGPT before he killed his mother and then himself last year, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation. Often, the chatbot seemed to reinforce the paranoid thoughts that had plagued him in the lead-up to the murder-suicide.

When reached for comment by TechCrunch, an OpenAI spokesperson provided the following statement: “Every week, more than 900 million people use ChatGPT to improve their daily lives through uses such as learning new skills or navigating complex healthcare systems. Our ongoing work in safety continues to play an important role in delivering these benefits to everyday people, as well as supporting scientific research and discovery. We are building ChatGPT to understand people’s intentions and respond in a safe and appropriate way, and we continue to improve our technology. We will collaborate with Attorney General Investigation.”

The Florida probe continues a streak of bad luck for OpenAI. A New Yorker profile of Sam Altman published earlier this week showed criticism and discontent within the company and among its investors, even quoting a Microsoft executive as saying: “I think there’s a small but real chance that he will eventually be remembered as a fraud on the level of Bernie Madoff or Sam Bankman-Fried.” Meanwhile, a Stargate-related project in the UK had to be temporarily halted, due to rising energy costs and regulations.