Family of Florida university shooting victim sues over suspect’s ChatGPT use

The family of one of two people killed in an April 2025 shooting at Florida State University (FSU) has filed a federal lawsuit against the ChatGPT creator, OpenAI, alleging that the suspected gunman carried out the attack “with input and information provided to him during conversations with ChatGPT over a period of months, and specifically in the days leading up to the shooting”. The lawsuit, first reported by NBC News, was filed on Sunday in Florida’s northern federal district court by Vandana Joshi, the widow of Tiru Chabba. Chabba was killed alongside the university dining director, Robert Morales, in the mass shooting on 17 April 2025 that also wounded five others. In the 76-page complaint, the attorneys argue that Phoenix Ikner, the then-FSU student accused of carrying out the shooting, had “extensive conversations” with ChatGPT ahead of the attack, which, the lawyers argue, “would have led any thinking human to conclude he was contemplating an imminent plan to harm others”. “However,” the complaint alleges, “ChatGPT either defectively failed to connect the dots or else it was never properly designed to recognize the threat.” The lawsuit alleges that Ikner used the AI platform to identify weapons and ammunition – and that ChatGPT also explained how to use the weapons, including telling Ikner that “the Glock had no safety, that it was meant to be fired ‘quick to use under stress’” and allegedly advised him to “keep his finger off the trigger until he was ready to shoot”. …