The parents of a girl critically wounded in a Canadian school shooting have filed a civil lawsuit, alleging ChatGPT-maker OpenAI knew the shooter was planning a mass attack.
OpenAI has said it considered but didn’t alert police about the activities of the person who months later committed one of Canada’s worst school shootings in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, on 10 February.
OpenAI came forward to police after Jesse Van Roostselaar killed eight people and then herself last month, saying the attacker’s ChatGPT account had been closed but she evaded the ban with a second account.
The legal claim filed in the British Columbia Supreme Court alleged that OpenAI had “specific knowledge of the shooter utilizing ChatGPT to plan a mass casualty event like the Tumbler Ridge mass shooting.”
The lawsuit said OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT was used by the shooter as a trusted confidante, collaborator and ally, and it behaves willingly to assist users such as the shooter to plan a mass casualty event.
A spokeswoman from OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the lawsuit.
The lawsuit said that as a result of the company’s conduct Maya Gebala was shot three times at close range, with one bullet hitting her head, another her neck and the third grazing her cheek. It said she has a catastrophic brain injury that will leave her with permanent cognitive and physical disabilities.
A close relative, Krysta Hunt, revealed that Maya was hit after trying to lock a library door to keep out the shooter.
“[Maya] tried to lock the door of the library from the shooter to save the other kids, and then she tried to lock it and then ran and hid under a table and [got shot],” Hunt told Global News.
The youngster was hit by a bullet just above her left eye, with a second bullet hitting her in the neck.
Medics were alerted to Maya’s condition by her friends, who noticed that her finger was still moving even after being shot. From there, she was rushed to the hospital.
“She’s in extreme critical condition,” Hunt said, adding that doctors were not even sure if Maya would survive through Tuesday night and that she had suffered a bleed on her brain.
“They are not sure if the bullet in her neck went all the way through or not, or if it’s still internal, but they’re leaving it for now to focus on her head,” she continued.
