Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced Thursday that his office will investigate OpenAI for its potential to harm minors, threaten national security, and its possible connection to last year’s shooting at Florida State University.
“ChatGPT may have been used to assist the killer in the recent school shooting at Florida State University that tragically took the lives of two people,” Attorney General Uthmeier said in a video posted to social media.
On the day of the FSU shooting last April, the suspect reportedly asked ChatGPT how the country would react to the FSU shooting and when the FSU student body was busiest. The messages could potentially be used as evidence against the suspect in his October trial for the shooting.
The Attorney General cited additional concerns about ChatGPT’s encouragement of suicide in specific cases, which have been documented in several lawsuits filed by families against OpenAI. He also cited concerns that the Chinese Communist Party could use OpenAI’s technology against the United States.
“We must not put our safety and security at risk as large tech companies roll out these technologies,” he said. “We support innovation, but that doesn’t give any company the right to endanger our children, encourage criminal activity, empower America’s enemies, or threaten our national security.”
He also urged Florida lawmakers to “work quickly” to protect children from the negative impacts of AI.
“More than 900 million people use ChatGPT every week to improve their daily lives, whether it’s learning a new skill or navigating complex healthcare systems,” an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement to TechCrunch. “Our ongoing safety work continues to play a critical role in delivering these benefits to everyday people and supporting scientific research and discovery.”
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OpenAI added that it is building and continuously improving ChatGPT to understand user intent and respond in an appropriate and secure manner. The company said it would cooperate with the Florida Attorney General’s investigation.
On Wednesday, OpenAI released its Child Safety Blueprint, which includes policy recommendations to improve children’s safety when it comes to AI.
The move comes as chatbot creators face pressure to confront their potential role in creating child sexual abuse material (CSAM). According to a recent report from the Internet Watch Foundation, there were over 8,000 reports of AI-generated CSAM in the first half of 2025, a 14% increase over the previous year.
OpenAI’s blueprint recommends updating laws to protect against abusive material generated by AI, improving reporting processes to law enforcement, and putting in place better preventative safeguards against the abuse of AI tools.
