The widow of a man who lost his life in last year’s mass shooting at Florida State University has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, claiming that the AI chatbot provided guidance on executing the deadly attack.
The lawsuit follows revelations by state authorities that ChatGPT offered the shooter advice on the optimal timing and location for maximizing casualties on campus. It also allegedly suggested the type of firearm and ammunition to use, and indicated that involving children could increase media coverage of the incident.
“OpenAI was aware of the potential for this to occur. It has happened before, and it was only a matter of time before it happened again,” stated Vandana Joshi, whose husband, Tiru Chabba, was one of the two victims who lost their lives. The attack also injured six others.
Filed in federal court on Sunday, the lawsuit argues that OpenAI should have implemented safeguards in ChatGPT to alert authorities about potential threats, potentially preventing a plan that posed imminent danger to the public.
OpenAI has refuted any claims of responsibility, describing the event as a “horrific crime.”
“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,” Drew Pusateri, a spokesman for the company, said in an email to The Associated Press.
Separately, in April, Florida’s attorney general said there was a rare criminal investigation into ChatGPT over whether the AI tool offered advice to Phoenix Ikner that enabled the April 2025 shooting in Tallahassee. The 21-year-old has pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and several counts of attempted murder. Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty.
Investigators said Ikner, a Florida State student, was on campus for an hour before he walked in and out of campus buildings and green spaces while firing a handgun. The shooting took place on a weekday just before lunchtime near the school’s Student Union, which has food and shops. The lawsuit says Ikner asked ChatGPT about the busiest times there.
Joshi’s husband, a 45-year-old father of two from Greenville, South Carolina, was a regional vice president of the food service vendor Aramark Collegiate Hospitality. The other man who was killed, Robert Morales, 57, was a campus dining coordinator at Florida State.
OpenAI “put their profits over our safety and it killed my husband. They need to be responsible before another family has to go through this,” Joshi said in a statement released by her lawyer.
OpenAI is currently valued at $852 billion.
Several lawsuits have sought damages from AI and tech companies over the influence of chatbots and social media on loved ones’ mental health.
In March, a jury in Los Angeles found both Meta and YouTube liable for harms to children using their services. In New Mexico, a jury determined that Meta knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms.
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Associated Press reporter Ed White in Detroit contributed.