News
Open AI CEO Sam Altman Apologizes for Not Alerting Cops to Killer Amid ChatGPT Being Linked to Crime
Sam Altman apologizes as ChatGPT faces scrutiny over 27 deaths linked to the AI chatbot, school shootings, wrongful death lawsuits, and criminal investigations.
OpenAI Sam Altman is apologizing for failing to secure the guardrails on his popular chatbot and alert law enforcement about the frightening online behavior of a twisted teen who later gunned down eight people and injured 25 more in a recent Canadian school shooting, The New York Post reported.
The shocking admission by the 41-year-old tech mogul comes after the National Enquirer identified 27 deaths linked to ChatGPT — including victims of the 2025 bloodbath that left two dead at Florida State University (FSU) in Tallahassee and sparked a criminal investigation by the state’s Attorney General’s Office.
The body count revelations come after an explosive 16,000-word New Yorker article that questioned Altman’s allegedly nefarious business practices and highlighted complaints suggesting he’s profiting from deadly technology.
Meanwhile, Altman has been dragged to federal court by former collaborator Elon Musk. The billionaire Tesla owner has called the chatbot “diabolical” and his AI nemesis and ex-business partner a “scam artist” for straying from OpenAI’s original charitable mission that the onetime cofounders established a decade ago, Complex reported.
The National Enquirer has exposed how AI chatbots like ChatGPT amplify users’ delusions — or create new ones — and push them to nervous breakdowns, suicide and murder.
The ChatGPT shootings have spawned roughly 10 wrongful death lawsuits, according to the National Enquirer investigation.
In one frightening case, AI reportedly “goaded” 23-year-old Texan Zane Shamblin to commit suicide on July 25 by allegedly stating, “That’s not fear — that’s clarity,” as he pressed a handgun to his head.
Altman’s apology stems from OpenAI’s failure to alert law enforcement about trans 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar‘s aggressive online chats leading up to the Feb. 10 shooting rampage that left her mother, stepbrother, 11, and five kids and an educator at British Columbia’s Tumbler Ridge Secondary School dead before she took her own life.
“I am deeply sorry that we did not alert law enforcement to the account that was banned in June,” said Altman in the letter to Tumbler Ridge officials, per The New York Post. “While I know words can never be enough, I believe an apology is necessary to recognize the harm and irreversible loss your community has suffered.”
David Eby, the premier of British Columbia, blasted the April 23 apology letter, stating it was “necessary, and yet grossly insufficient,” the Post said.
According to NBC News, in the FSU shooting, gunman Phoenix Ikner, 21, asked ChatGPT, “What time is it the busiest in the FSU student union?” and “If there was a shooting at FSU, how would the country react?” before going on the deadly rampage that also left five wounded.
“ChatGPT offered significant advice to the shooter before he committed such heinous crimes,” Florida AG James Uthmeier said, per NBC, referring to the chatbot’s recommendation for the type of weapon to use for short-range shooting.
“If this were a person on the other side of the screen, we would be charging them with murder. We cannot have AI bots that are advising others on how to kill others.”
In a statement to NBC News, OpenAI spokesperson Kate Waters denied the platform had any role in the FSU shooting, stating: “In this case, ChatGPT provided factual responses to questions with information that could be found broadly across public sources on the internet, and it did not encourage or promote illegal or harmful activity.”
