HISPI Project Cerebellum HISPI PROJECT CEREBELLUM

ChatGPT Was Alleged to Have Aided Planning of Florida State University Mass Shooting

April 17, 2025

On April 17, 2025, a shooting at Florida State University resulted in the deaths of Tiru Chabba and Robert Morales, with others injured. Phoenix Ikner, the accused shooter, has pleaded not guilty. In 2026, victims' families and attorneys reportedly alleged that Ikner utilized ChatGPT prior to the attack for discussions surrounding mass shootings, firearms, campus activities, and media attention. OpenAI contested responsibility. However, concerns about AI governance, trustworthy AI, and safe and secure AI continue to arise as these allegations underscore the importance of responsible AI usage and robust guardrails for AI.

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Matched TAIM controls

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Alleged deployer
phoenix-ikner, openai
Alleged developer
openai
Alleged harmed parties
tiru-chabba's-family, tiru-chabba, robert-morales's-family, robert-morales, florida-state-university-shooting-victims, florida-state-university-campus-community, students, university-students, educational-communities

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Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1487

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.