OpenAI faces seven lawsuits over failure to report ChatGPT user linked to Canadian school shooting to law enforcement

More than eight months before a February shooting at a school in Tumbler Ridge, Canada, OpenAI's internal safety team flagged a ChatGPT account later linked to the shooter as posing a credible threat of gun violence. OpenAI deactivated the account but did not report the user to police, then told the shooter how to regain access by signing up with another email address, according to the lawsuits.

Seven lawsuits were filed Wednesday in a California court by six families of victims killed in the shooting and one mother whose daughter remains in intensive care. Six people were killed at the school—five children and a teaching assistant—and 27 were wounded; the shooter also died from apparent self-inflicted wounds.

Attorney Jay Edelson alleged that OpenAI delayed reporting the threat to protect CEO Sam Altman from public criticism while the company pursues an IPO; OpenAI was recently valued at $852 billion. Altman issued a public apology stating he is "deeply sorry that we did not alert law enforcement to the account that was banned in June."