OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman are facing 30 new lawsuits that accuse them of providing “substantial assistance and encouragement” to the suspect in Canada’s Tumbler Ridge school shooting, as reported earlier by TechCrunch. The new wave of lawsuits was filed in a California federal court on Wednesday by the students, teachers, and the principal in the school at the time of the shooting.
Similar to the lawsuits filed by Tumbler Ridge victims’ families in April, these lawsuits claim OpenAI failed to take action after its automated review system flagged conversations that the alleged shooter, Jesse Van Rootselaar, had with ChatGPT about gun violence. While its safety team recommended that OpenAI contact Canadian authorities, the lawsuits allege OpenAI chief global affairs officer, Chris Lehane, was involved in a decision to stay silent out of concern for the company’s “reputational and financial standing.”
Jason Kwon, OpenAI’s chief strategy officer, responded to the lawsuits in a post on X, saying they contain “false claims” about its safety teams. He adds that it’s “completely untrue to say that the people at the center of these challenging decisions do not prioritize safety, or that there are ‘political’ or ‘public relations’ factors at play.” OpenAI is also facing a lawsuit from the state of Florida, which accuses the company of aiding and abetting mass shooters, including the suspect who carried out an attack at Florida State University last year.
The new Tumbler Ridge lawsuits also allege that OpenAI allowed the suspect to continue using ChatGPT by “deactivating” their account rather than issuing a system-wide ban. This allegedly allowed the suspect to regain access to the AI chatbot by signing up with another email. “Providing the Shooter with continued access to this tool constituted substantial assistance in itself,” the lawsuit alleges, claiming OpenAI’s “substantial assistance was a key factor in causing the Shooter to plan and carry out the attack.”