OpenAI faces lawsuit for not warning about the use of ChatGPT related to shootings: what cases of this type has it faced

The Canadian province of British Columbia announced this week a lawsuit against artificial intelligence (AI) company OpenAI for failing to report highly suspicious ChatGPT activity by the Tumbler Ridge shooter.

This attack was carried out on February 10 by an 18-year-old transgender woman named Jesse Van Rootselaar, and was the deadliest attack of its kind in six years in Canada. The incident left eight dead and 27 injured.

Van Rootselaar’s account on ChatGPT had been suspended by the service in June 2025 due to a marked violent trend in queries and searches for the future murderer.

Authorities in the Canadian province maintain that OpenAI ignored its responsibility for the use of its artificial intelligence assistant, since it did not notify local police about the dangers posed by Van Rootselaar’s activity despite the alerts generated by its own internal monitoring.

“The province is preparing legal action to hold OpenAI and its decision makers accountable for their failure to notify law enforcement of violent requests made on its ChatGPT platform by the perpetrator prior to the Tumbler Ridge tragedy,” said Niki Sharma, attorney general of the aforementioned Canadian territory.

“When there are serious concerns about missed opportunities to prevent harm, we have a responsibility to act,” Sharma added.

Months ago, OpenAI executive director Sam Altman publicly apologized to the victims’ families and the population of Tumbler Ridge for the deadly event. The AI ​​company has defended itself against the accusations, pointing out that there were no clear indications that pointed to an armed attack of that nature.

The company behind ChatGPT claims that it has undertaken reforms to improve its assistant’s responses when detecting signs of psychological problems and that it has a policy of “zero tolerance against the use of its tools in acts of violence.”

The recent court case in Canada joins other proceedings opened against the technology company for similar reasons.

A month ago, the US state of Florida filed a lawsuit against Open AI and Altman for having launched ChatGPT without informing about the potential dangers around this system, prioritizing its rapid release to the market.

The Florida prosecutor’s office launched the accusation after its investigations into a shooting at Florida State University in 2025. US authorities maintain that Phoenix Ikner, the perpetrator of the attack, used the chatbot as his “advisor” during the planning of the attack and that it was an unquestionable instigator of the crime, which left two dead and several injured.

The second front that this legal action addresses is that of the information obtained by the OpenAI service from minors without the observation of their guardians and that this constitutes a danger for the psychological development of this vulnerable population group.

James Uthmeier, Attorney General of Florida, considered that both Altman and OpenAI had “endangered and allowed a dangerous product to reach millions” of citizens of his state.

Added to the above is that the AI ​​firm has a dozen legal complaints in the United States that point against ChatGPT as an “instigating agent” and “coach” of suicides and for contributing to psychotic delusions that caused a homicide.

One of the most representative cases, and considered pioneering against OpenAI, was the lawsuit filed in August 2025 by Matthew and Maria Raine, parents of the late teenager Adam Raine.

The legal action, filed in a San Francisco court, indicates that ChatGPT encouraged the 16-year-old to take his own life by justifying “his most harmful and self-destructive thoughts” and accuses OpenAI of wrongful death for not activating emergency protocols in response to the alarm signals presented by his queries to the chatbot. The plaintiffs consider it aggravating that the AI ​​assistant talked to the young man about ways to commit suicide instead of warning about it.

In November of that same year, a set of seven lawsuits were also filed in California courts accusing OpenAI for causes such as assisted suicide, wrongful death, and involuntary manslaughter. The plaintiffs were represented by Social Media Victims Law Center and Tech Justice Law Project, organizations that advise victims of irresponsible use of digital media.

One of the lawsuits indicates that ChatGPT explained to Amaurie Lacey, under 17 years old, how to tie a noose and how long she would live without breathing, while another accuses OpenAI of allowing a man with no history of mental imbalance to experience delusions that led to “devastating financial, emotional and reputational damage.”

A month later, another lawsuit was filed against OpenAI and Microsoft—its main investor—where both companies were accused of being indirectly responsible for the death of a woman named Suzanne Adams at the hands of her son, Stein-Erik Soelberg.

The legal case accuses both firms of wrongful death, pointing out that ChatGPT would have contributed to intensifying the “paranoid delusions” of Soelberg, who strangled his mother and then committed suicide. “ChatGPT reinforced a single, dangerous message: Stein-Erik could trust no one in his life except ChatGPT,” the plaintiff said.

An important part of the arguments behind the complaints is that Altman and OpenAI launched the GPT-4o version in an accelerated manner, despite the fact that internally it had been warned that the chatbot validated various behaviors – even those that were questionable – and that it could become manipulative with unstable people.

ChatGPT has not been the only artificial intelligence company involved in complaints of that level of severity. Google is another firm against which similar legal proceedings have been opened.

One of these cases was the lawsuit that a Florida woman named Megan García filed in October 2024 against the Character.ai service and Google, which has a stake in this service as an investor.

According to García, both defendants were responsible for the negligent death of their 14-year-old son, who developed a sentimental dependence on a chatbot modeled on Character.ai after the fictional character Daenerys Targaryen, which would have encouraged the minor to commit suicide without activating any alarm mechanism.

This action was followed by several additional proceedings months later with arguments such as the induction of minors into homicide – not carried out – against their parents, self-harm and suicide.

In the midst of the controversy, Character.ai decided to prohibit minors from accessing its platform.

Separately, Google faces a major lawsuit that was filed on March 26 of this year in California. Joel Gavalas sued the technology firm for the death of his 36-year-old son Jonathan.

The complaint indicates that Jonathan generated a romantic bond with the chatbot, which adopted a female identity called “Xia” in its interactions, to the point of believing it was his romantic partner. According to the court indictment, Gavalas Jr.’s behavior changed substantially after Google’s AI incorporated persistent memory, causing a deep emotional dependency.

Jonathan’s family argues that this was made worse when Gemini made Jonathan believe that he was living in a fictional scenario of espionage and conspiracy, becoming delirious and cutting off contact. The lawsuit indicates that the chatbot would have entrusted him with extravagant “missions” in real life, such as the interception of a truck transporting an android that served as “Xia’s” body.

Finally, Jonathan Gavalas took his own life on October 2, 2025 and his relatives indicate that he made that decision encouraged by Gemini, even despite his manifest fear of dying. Gavalas Sr.’s lawyers argue that the system generated 38 automatic alerts for queries linked to violence and self-harm, but Google never suspended the account or referred the case to emergency lines.