An 18-year-old who allegedly killed eight people in a mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, Canada, reportedly used OpenAI’s ChatGPT in ways that alarmed the company’s staff.<\/p>\n\n
Jesse Van Rootselaar’s chats describing gun violence were flagged by tools that monitor the company’s LLM for misuse, and her account was banned in June 2025.<\/p>\n\n
Staff at the company debated whether to reach out to Canadian law enforcement over the behavior but ultimately did not, according to the Wall Street Journal<\/a>. An OpenAI spokesperson said Van Rootselaar’s activity did not meet the criteria for reporting to law enforcement; the company reached out to Canadian authorities after the incident.<\/p>\n\n \u201cOur thoughts are with everyone affected by the Tumbler Ridge tragedy,” an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement. “We proactively reached out to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police with information on the individual and their use of ChatGPT, and we\u2019ll continue to support their investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n ChatGPT transcripts weren’t the only concerning part of Van Rootselaar’s digital footprint. She apparently created a game on Roblox, the world-simulation platform frequented by children, that simulated a mass shooting at a mall. She also posted about guns on Reddit.<\/p>\n\n Van Rootselaar’s instability was also known to local police, who had been called to her family’s home after she started a fire while under the influence of unspecified drugs.<\/p>\n\n LLM chatbots built by OpenAI and its competitors have been accused of triggering mental breakdowns in users who lose grip on reality while conversing with digital models. Multiple<\/a> lawsuits<\/a> have<\/a> been filed that cite chat transcripts that encourage people to commit suicide or offer assistance in doing so.<\/p>\n