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Lawsuit demands OpenAI pay for new school after ChatGPT used in shooting
British Columbia sues OpenAI, demands Tumbler Ridge shooter’s ChatGPT logs.
The families of victims killed in one of the deadliest mass shootings in Canada’s history have already sued OpenAI over its failure to warn law enforcement after discovering in advance that the shooter was using ChatGPT to plan the violence.
Now, British Columbia is suing, explaining for the first time how costly and extreme the disaster response has been. OpenAI and Sam Altman owe the tiny remote mining community shattered by the tragedy much more than an apology, the Canadian province argued. They must make meaningful changes to end ChatGPT-assisted violence and then pay whatever it costs to help Tumbler Ridge to rebuild, recover, and heal.
In a complaint filed Monday, British Columbia explained that Tumbler Ridge Secondary School had to be demolished after an 18-year-old transgender shooter, Jesse Van Rootselaar, committed suicide there in February after killing five kids and an education assistant. In total, eight lives were lost, as prior to the school shooting, Van Rootselaar shot their mother and half-brother.
Previously, the secondary school sat “in the heart of the town, both geographically and culturally,” the lawsuit said. But after the shooting, it became an unavoidable “symbol of the trauma.”
About 160 students, teachers, and staff “were trapped in classrooms and closets” at the school for hours, and they were too traumatized to ever go back. To provide “at least some small relief to those who have suffered the most intensely,” demolition began in August, and the community hopes to have a replacement school built at a new location by the end of this year, if all goes to plan.
British Columbia argued that OpenAI and Altman should pay for the school, as well as cover a wide range of other emergency costs that never would have been incurred if not for “this tragedy and its foreseeable consequences.” They also asked the court to provide injunctive relief, including requiring OpenAI to update ChatGPT to automatically terminate violent conversations.
Most urgently, British Columbia and the local school district’s Board of Education have asked the court for an immediate order that would force OpenAI to share Van Rootselaar’s chat logs with the public for the first time.
So far, OpenAI has only shared the logs with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Asked for comment on whether there’s any plan to release the chat logs to the public—as a Florida law enforcement agency did following a prior ChatGPT-linked shooting at Florida State University—RCMP declined to comment. Instead, they pointed Ars to a July statement, where the RCMP would only confirm that police are reviewing information from online accounts. In a seeming acknowledgment that the public wants answers, the statement also offered a reminder that “it is important to understand that the absence of publicly disclosed details does not mean investigators do not have that information.”
OpenAI declined to comment directly on the lawsuit or requested remedies. The company has said that it was protecting Van Rootselaar’s privacy when the decision was made to override human review teams recommending that the violent chat logs be shared with police. Today, a spokesperson told Ars that “what happened in Tumbler Ridge was an unspeakable tragedy, and our thoughts remain with the victims, their families, and the entire community. OpenAI remains committed to working collaboratively with government and law enforcement officials, and continuing to advance our ongoing safety work.”