Did AI play a role in a grisly double murder?

Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said 17-year-old Arjun Aravind, charged with killing his 45-year-old mother Sudha Venkatesan and 14-year-old brother Siddharth Aravind in Acton, Massachusetts, used OpenAI's ChatGPT to create violent fantasy stories about killing his family before the murders. Ryan highlighted the teen's internet use, saying he engaged with ChatGPT to explore theoretical ideas and fantasy scenarios related to threats to his family. OpenAI did not respond to Mashable's request for comment.

Did AI play a role in a grisly double murder? Neal Broverman /author/neal-broverman Read Full Bio /author/neal-broverman Officials in Acton, Massachusetts, say a teenager charged with killing two members of his family was using generative AI chatbot ChatGPT https://mashable.com/category/chatgpt to explore violent scenarios prior to the murders. Arjun Aravind, 17, is accused of killing his 45-year-old mother, Sudha Venkatesan, and 14-year-old brother, Siddharth Aravind, this week. The boy's father was not home when the murders took place. Arjun Aravind was located by police in nearby Wayland, Massachusetts, on Wednesday morning and taken into custody without incident. You May Also Like Speaking to reporters following Aravind’s arrest, Middlesex County DA Marian Ryan made a point of highlighting Arjun Aravind's internet use, saying the teen created violent scenarios on ChatGPT and masked it as fantasy fiction. "The investigation has so far shown that Arjun had recently been demonstrating some concerning behavior, including using the internet and ChatGPT to make searches for theoretical ideas or fantasy stories regarding the killing of his family," Ryan said, according to an NBC News report https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/teen-accused-killing-mother-brother-help-chatgpt-rcna592308 . Terms of Use https://www.ziffdavis.com/terms-of-use and Privacy Policy https://www.ziffdavis.com/ztg-privacy-policy . "He was engaged in the use of ChatGPT in creating fantasy stories, kind of the gothic novel kind of stories, asking questions, creating characters, asking what about this if this happened to that, and they seem to appear to relate to threats to his family." Mashable's request for comment from OpenAI https://mashable.com/category/openai , the San Francisco company behind ChatGPT, was not returned as of press time. While numerous parents have accused chatbots of playing a role https://mashable.com/article/chatgpt-lawsuits-openai in young people harming themselves, some prosecutors are now pointing the finger at AI companies for allegedly abetting crimes. Earlier this year, Florida man Hisham Abugharbieh was accused of killing two college students https://apnews.com/article/missing-grad-students-florida-chatgpt-bangladesh-17b149db0519bb4f305f521fb4dee6ca and using ChatGPT to inquire about disposing of the bodies. OpenAI announced an update in December https://mashable.com/article/chatgpt-teen-safety-first-principles that purportedly puts "teen safety first" for underage users of ChatGPT. The company stated that it had refined its Model Spec, which guides how OpenAI's AI models should behave, and put a new set of principles in place for how it chatbot responds in high-stakes situations involving users under 18. A report released in March from the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that eight out of 10 popular AI chatbots https://mashable.com/article/ai-chatbots-help-plan-violence-school-shooting-bombing helped researchers posing as teen boys plan violent crimes in over half of the responses. Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems. Topics Mental Health https://mashable.com/category/mental-health Social Good https://mashable.com/category/social-good OpenAI https://mashable.com/category/openai True Crime https://mashable.com/category/true-crime Neal joined Mashable’s Social Good team in 2024, editing and writing stories about digital culture and its effects on the environment and marginalized communities. He is the former editorial director of The Advocate and Out magazines, has contributed to the Los Angeles Times, Curbed, and Los Angeles magazine, and is a recipient of the Sarah Pettit Memorial Award for LGBTQ Journalist of the Year Award from the National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association NLGJA . He lives in Los Angeles with his family.