Murder charges against AI? Florida is considering legal consequences for OpenAI after the shooting

On April 17, 2025 it happened Florida State University went on a shooting spree. The 20-year-old student Phoenix Ikner shot two university employees on campus and six other people were injured. The perpetrator used a handgun that belonged to his mother, who worked as a police deputy.

The gunman obtained information via ChatGPT before committing the crime

Find out more before committing the crime Phoenix Ikner in detail about ChatGPT. He shared images of the firearm with the AI ​​service and wanted to know what ammunition he should use. He asked the chatbot what times the student union where the shooting occurred was busiest.

AThe ChatGPT perpetrator also wanted to know the best way to get into the headlines with a shooting spree. The chatbot responded that you get the most attention when children are involved. “Even two to three victims can attract more attention,” ChatGPT is said to have replied.

Victim’s family sues OpenAI

The family of Tiru Chabba, one of the victims, has now filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. The chatbot made the crime possible.

The Florida Attorney General’s Office had already opened an investigation against OpenAI in April 2026. In the US state, people who encourage or assist someone in committing a crime are treated as abettors of the perpetrator, who bear the same responsibility as the perpetrator himself. “If ChatGPT were a person, he would be charged with murder,” Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said in a press release in April.

OpenAI denies responsibility for the crime. ChatGPT only provided information that could be found freely on the Internet anyway. The chatbot did not encourage “illegal or harmful actions”.

How realistic is condemnation for OpenAI?

But how realistic is a conviction for OpenAI? The case is difficult because it was not an employee who instigated the crime, but a product, said legal scholar Matthew Tokson to the AFP news agency. In previous cases in which companies were held liable, people were behind the decisions.

The most likely scenario is a charge of negligence or gross negligence. In the latter case, it is assumed that the defendant should have recognized a danger but was careless about it. Such charges are usually sanctioned as misdemeanors rather than crimes. If convicted, this would mean a rather lenient sentence.

“Because this is such a novel legal issue, a more compelling, clear-cut case would probably be one where there are internal documents that acknowledge these risks and may not take them seriously enough,” Tokson said, according to AFP. “Theoretically, liability could be established even without such documents,” said the expert. “But in practice I think it’s difficult.”