The province of British Columbia says it is preparing legal action against the artificial intelligence company OpenAI, seeking to hold the firm and its decision makers accountable in connection with a deadly school shooting.
According to CBC, the province wants to hold OpenAI responsible for what it describes as a failure to notify law enforcement about violent prompts that were made on the company's ChatGPT platform before the attack.
The case stems from the Tumbler Ridge mass shooting. On February 10th, a shooter killed five students and an educator at the local secondary school, after also killing her mother and half-brother. Police say the 18-year-old later died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
In the aftermath, authorities said they uncovered the perpetrator's ChatGPT history, which they say allegedly included plans for violence, raising questions about what the platform knew and when.
Officials say OpenAI had banned the shooter's account back in 2025 over the disturbing content, but that the company never alerted law enforcement to the warning signs it had seen.
The province says it is working in both British Columbia and California to explore all avenues to hold OpenAI accountable, in a case that could test the responsibility of AI companies to flag threats to authorities.