Criminal proceedings opened in the US against ChatGPT for advice to a murder suspect
Criminal proceedings have been opened in the US against ChatGPT and its parent company OpenAI after analyzing correspondence between the chatbot and the suspect in the attack at Florida State University. As reports The New York Times, this was stated by the Florida Attorney General on April 21.
The investigation his department opened this month has changed its status from civil to criminal. In April 2025, a shooting near a student club at Florida State University killed two adults and injured six others, including at least one student.
The suspect in the case is Phoenix Eichner, who was a 20-year-old university student at the time. He is charged with multiple murders and attempted murders. He is currently in custody awaiting trial.
Prosecutors have included more than 200 messages they say the suspect exchanged with ChatGPT in the case file. On the day of the attack, he asked the chatbot how the country might respond to the Florida State University shooting and when the student union is most crowded.
On April 9, the Florida attorney general first announced that his office was opening an investigation into OpenAI and ChatGPT. On Tuesday, he clarified that the civil proceedings regarding the company’s possible liability would continue concurrently with the criminal proceedings.
“My prosecutors have looked into this, and they told me that if there was a person on the other end of the screen, we would charge them with murder,” Florida Attorney General James Uthmeyer said.
OpenAI said it would cooperate with the attorney general’s office. Utmeyer acknowledged that OpenAI is a company, not an individual, and added that an investigation into the company’s possible criminal liability could set a new legal precedent.
At the same time, he stressed that he must determine whether “humans could have been involved in the development, management, and operation” of the chatbot to such an extent that it “justifies criminal liability.”
