The widow of a man killed in last year’s mass shooting at Florida State University is suing ChatGPT maker OpenAI, blaming the company’s artificial intelligence chatbot for giving advice on how to carry out the rampage.
The lawsuit, filed Sunday in federal court, comes after state authorities disclosed that ChatGPT gave information to the shooter about what time and location would maximize victims on campus, as well as the type of gun and ammunition to use. Authorities said he was also told that an attack can get more media attention if children are involved.
Vandana Joshi, whose husband Tiru Chabba was one of two people killed, said in a statement Monday that OpenAI knew this would happen and that it was only a matter of time before it happened again. Six people were also wounded in the shooting.
The lawsuit said OpenAI should have built ChatGPT with guardrails to let someone know that police may need to investigate to prevent a specific plan for imminent harm to the public.
OpenAI has denied any wrongdoing in what it called a terrible crime. A spokesman for the company said that ChatGPT provided factual responses to questions with information that could be found broadly across public sources on the internet, and that it did not encourage or promote illegal or harmful activity.
