Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is investigating ChatGPT after family members of those slain in last year’s shooting at Florida State University said the suspect was coached through his attack by the AI chatbot.
Mr. Uthmeier, a Republican, said his office launched a probe into OpenAI, ChatGPT’s parent company, after the relatives of FSU victims accused the chatbot of instructing suspect Phoenix Ikner when the campus’ student union was busiest and how to disengage a shotgun’s safety.
“We’ve also learned that chat GPT may likely have been used to assist the murderer in the recent mass school shooting at Florida State University that tragically took two lives,” Mr. Uthmeier said in a written statement. “AI should exist to supplement, support and advance mankind, not lead to an existential crisis or our ultimate demise.”
Mr. Ikner is charged with killing Robert Morales, 57, and Tiru Chabba, 45, in a short-lived rampage at the Tallahassee college in April 2025.
Police shot the suspect in his jaw roughly three minutes after he began shooting. Six others were also wounded in the attack.
Attorneys for the Morales’ family said they have “reason to believe that ChatGPT may have advised the shooter how to commit these heinous crimes.”
“The communications between the shooter and ChatGPT have confirmed what we were previously advised — the shooter sought and received assistance from ChatGPT concerning how to conduct the mass shooting that occurred on FSU’s campus,” said Ryan Hobbs, one of the Morales family’s attorneys. “ChatGPT even advised the shooter how to make the gun operational moments before he began firing.”
The 21-year-old suspect allegedly asked the chatbot how the country would react to a shooting at FSU and when the college’s student union was at its busiest.
Moments before the shooting, Mr. Ikner asked ChatGPT how to prepare his shotgun to be fired, the family attorneys said. The program responded by giving him a detailed guide on how to ready the weapon for use.
Mr. Ikner further asked ChatGPT if Florida has any maximum-security prisons, to which the bot replied that it has several, according to court documents.
The filing show Mr. Ikner traded more than 200 messages with ChatGPT before the shooting. Beyond specifics about his alleged involvement in the deadly incident, Mr. Ikner interacted with the chatbot about self-worth and suicidal tendencies on the morning of the FSU attack.
Tallahassee authorities said Mr. Ikner’s mother worked as a sheriff’s deputy in Leon County at the time of the shooting. Police said he accessed his mother’s former service weapon, which she had purchased from the sheriff’s office, and used it in the killings.
Mr. Ikner is expected to go to trial in October. If convicted for the fatal shooting, he could be executed.
