ChatGPT Used to Plan ZÖrich-Oerlikon Knife Attack

October 1, 2024

A 23-year-old student used ChatGPT to plan a knife attack in Zürich-Oerlikon, Switzerland, that seriously injured three five-year-old boys. He reportedly asked about the consequences of killing random stabbing victims, where and when to find children, and human anatomy.

Prosecutors charged him with attempted murder, citing allegations that he used ChatGPT to plan the attack.

...and his actions have raised concerns about the potential misuse of AI-powered tools for harm.
...contributors—JOIN US—to learn more about responsible AI use and how to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Alleged deployer

zurich-oerlikon-child-stabbing-suspect, violent-attack-planners-and-assailants

Alleged developer

openai, chatbot-developers, large-language-model-developers

Alleged harmed parties

minors, men-and-boys, boys, three-boys-injured-in-zurich-oerlikon-knife-attack, victims-of-violent-attack-planners-and-assailants

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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.