OpenAI’s chatbot fed the school shooter’s violent fantasies and planning up to the massacre, our investigation reveals.
In June 2025, Jesse Van Rootselaar received an email notification from OpenAI. Van Rootselaar had been using ChatGPT to discuss committing potential acts of violence—including a mass shooting at a shopping mall—and now OpenAI had banned that account. But the troubled teen living in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, was not deterred and soon logged back on with a second account.
In case anybody doubted the corporation that was actively complicit.
Can’t remove or deflect blame from the actual perpetrator. AI is often used for good. My wife used it to learn how to start a business and the accounting system. AI is like a car, a public road, a kitchen knife, a gun, etc - it can be used for many purposes, but it is who uses it for what, which differs. Same goes for AI hacking other companies. The blame sits squarely with that AI’s owner who still had it connected to the Internet. AI is like a toddler, it is not intelligent, or even close to superintelligent, it is artificial.
OpenAI is a megacorporation that pays people to read through your conversations, and flagged the killer’s account for threats of violence, but failed to follow up.
Can you explain how OpenAI is not guilty of negligence when they sell a product that promises they are careful?
The AI companies are apparently inundated with flags of all sorts of behaviour from criminal to oddly sexual etc prompts from 160+ countries around the world. I don’t think their terms of service guarantee anything around safety specifically. My point really though was, whilst these companies should put the guardrails in place, the primary blame still sits with the human who made the decision to act illegally. We should not be turning away from the actual actor. Humans are also using devious ways to get around the guardrails (like Tesla drivers who do hacks to bypass safeguards for autopilot), and these are deliberate actions.
Phew. Glad to hear it wasn’t a glitch in parenting, policing, school support, gun safety or negligence. Everyone can rest easy now, and also not consider fixing anything. Let’s sue like Americans and move on.
What’s up with this deflection and corporate defense?
This article is all about negligence. OpenAI’s negligence.
If you believe they should escape criticism, could you please explain why, rather than using sarcasm?
It’s for the greater good.
(Still sarcasm, if you didn’t catch on.)
