Family of Florida State Shooting Victim Sues OpenAI for Enabling Suspect

The family of a victim from last year's deadly mass shooting at Florida State University has accused OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, of enabling the suspect before the attack.

Phoenix Ikner, 21, pleaded not guilty to murder and attempted murder charges in the 2025 shooting, which heads to trial later this year. Florida's attorney general has opened a criminal investigation into OpenAI related to the incident.

The shooting on FSU's main campus in Tallahassee killed Tiru Chabba and Robert Morales. Five others suffered serious injuries. Chabba's family filed the lawsuit against OpenAI and Ikner in federal court on Sunday.

The suit claims ChatGPT assisted Ikner in planning the shooting for months. It suggested weapons, campus locations and times when the most people would be at risk.

"Ikner had multiple lengthy conversations with ChatGPT about his interests in Hitler, Nazis, fascism, national socialism, Christian nationalism and worse. They talked about multiple mass shootings and they planned this shooting together," attorney Bakari Sellers, who represents Chabba's widow Vandana Joshi, said in a statement. "Not once did anyone flag that as concerning. No one called the police or a psychiatrist or even Ikner's family because, to do so, would violate OpenAI's business model."

OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri told CBS News on Monday that the company has cooperated with authorities since the shooting.

"Last year's mass shooting at Florida State University was a tragedy, but ChatGPT is not responsible for this terrible crime," Pusateri said. He added, "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."

Pusateri said ChatGPT serves millions for legitimate uses.

"We work continuously to strengthen our safeguards to detect harmful intent, limit misuse, and respond appropriately when safety risks arise," he said.

The FSU shooting marks the second deadly attack linked to ChatGPT. The suspect in last month's killings of two University of South Florida graduate students allegedly asked the chatbot how to dispose of a body before the students vanished.

In another case, families of victims from a mass shooting in Canada sued OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman. They alleged the company knew of the shooter's plans but failed to alert authorities.