Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced an investigation into OpenAI on April 9, following last year's shooting at Florida State University that left two people dead and five injured. Reports indicate the gunman used ChatGPT to research and plan the attack.
The FSU shooting happened in April 2025. This investigation marks the first major state-level legal action aimed at an AI company over a violent crime. The family of one victim has separately announced plans to sue OpenAI directly, arguing the company bears some responsibility for building a tool that helped plan the violence.
The core legal question is whether ChatGPT's content filters - the automated systems designed to block harmful outputs - were adequate. OpenAI's terms of service prohibit using the platform to plan violence, but enforcement happens at the model level through training and safety tuning, not through account verification or real-world monitoring. Whether a company can be held liable for what a user does with a general-purpose AI tool is largely untested territory in U.S. law.
OpenAI has not publicly responded to the investigation announcement. If the AG's office finds grounds for action, it could trigger similar inquiries from other state attorneys general and accelerate federal pressure to pass AI safety legislation with real enforcement teeth.