“The families of victims of a school shooting in a remote Canadian Rockies town are suing artificial intelligence company OpenAI in a United States federal court, alleging that the ChatGPT maker failed to alert police to the shooter’s alarming interactions with the chatbot.”

“A lawsuit filed on Wednesday on behalf of 12-year-old Maya Gebala, who was critically injured in the February shooting, is among the first of more than two dozen cases from families in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, in what their lawyers say represents “an entire community stepping forward to hold OpenAI accountable”.”

“Jesse Van Rootselaar, whose interactions with ChatGPT are at the centre of the lawsuits, shot her mother and stepbrother at home before killing an educational assistant and five students aged 12 to 13 at her former school on February 10 , according to police.”

“Van Rootselaar, who was 18, then died by suicide.”

“An OpenAI spokesperson called the shooting “a tragedy” and said the company has a zero-tolerance policy for using its tools to assist in committing violence.”

““As we shared with Canadian officials, we have already strengthened our safeguards, including improving how ChatGPT responds to signs of distress, connecting people with local support and mental health resources, strengthening how we assess and escalate potential threats of violence, and improving detection of repeat policy violators,” the spokesperson said in a statement.”