Uthmeier, a Republican appointee of Gov. Ron DeSantis, earlier this month signaled Florida would investigate OpenAI and ChatGPT over public safety and national security concerns. The attorney general elaborated on the probe Tuesday, explaining that Florida now is pursuing criminal and civil investigations into OpenAI surrounding the FSU shooting, child sex abuse material and the encouragement of suicide and self-harm.
New revelations from the FSU shooting, though, are expected to a play a central role in Florida’s criminal investigation into OpenAI.
The suspected FSU gunman — Phoenix Ikner, who was a 20-year-old student during the April 2025 shooting — allegedly communicated frequently with the ChatGPT bot about a campus attack. Specifically, he allegedly asked for detailed information about operating guns and ammo, how the country might react and where he could find the most students. Ikner is accused of killing two people at FSU and wounding six others and awaits trial on multiple charges of murder and attempted murder.
“Just because this is a chatbot in AI does not mean that there is not criminal culpability,” Uthmeier said Tuesday.
“So, we are going to look at who knew what, designed what, or should have done what. And if it is clear that individuals knew that this type of dangerous behavior might take place, that these types of unfortunate tragic events might take place, and nevertheless still turned to profits, still allowed this business to operate, then people need to be held accountable.”
To that end, Uthmeier’s office subpoenaed OpenAI for scores of records, including policies and training materials over the years regarding threats of self-harm or harm to others, along with how the company cooperates with law enforcement. Uthmeier also wants to know how OpenAI responded to the FSU shooting and more about the company’s executives and their roles.
In response to Uthmeier’s claims about the FSU shooting, a spokesperson for OpenAI said, “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.”
Furthermore, the company said it continues to cooperate with authorities and “proactively” shared information with law enforcement after identifying a ChatGPT account believed to be associated with the suspect.
“Last year’s mass shooting at Florida State University was a tragedy, but ChatGPT is not responsible for this terrible crime,” OpenAI said in a statement.
The attorney general’s inquiry into a top generative AI chatbot is the latest attempt by Florida to influence tech policy at the state level. DeSantis has led the charge in seeking to regulate the technology during his last year in office and recently called for lawmakers to reconsider child and consumer AI protections in a special lawmaking session. His proposals, however, so far have failed to gain traction largely due to Florida House leaders supporting the Trump administration’s call for a nationwide AI framework.