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Florida’s attorney general has launched a criminal investigation into OpenAI, alleging that ChatGPT advised the man accused of carrying out a mass shooting at Florida State University last year on how to commit the attack.

Getting into it: Attorney General James Uthmeier announced Tuesday that his office has issued subpoenas to OpenAI, escalating what had been a civil investigation into a criminal one. According to Uthmeier, a review of chat logs showed that Phoenix Ikner, 21 (who is charged with killing two people and injuring six others in an April 2025 shooting on FSU’s Tallahassee campus) was in constant communication with ChatGPT before the attack.

Uthmeier said the chatbot advised Ikner on what type of gun to use, which ammunition to pair with it, whether a gun would be effective at short range, what time of day would give him access to more people, and where on campus he would encounter the highest population. More than 200 AI messages have been entered into evidence in the case. Ikner’s trial is set for October, and he has pleaded not guilty.

“If it was a person on the other end of that screen, we would be charging them with murder,” Uthmeier said. “We cannot have AI bots that are advising people on how to kill others.” He added that his office will “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 and nevertheless still turned to profit, then people need to be held accountable.”

OpenAI has pushed back, with a spokeswoman saying that 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.” The company said it proactively shared information about the suspected shooter’s account with law enforcement after identifying it following the attack.