British Columbia is pursuing legal action against artificial intelligence company OpenAI related to the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge.
Attorney General Niki Sharma said Tuesday the province had retained legal counsel in B.C. and California to explore options to recover costs related to the tragedy, including the cost of constructing a new school in the community.
Sharma said the effort is in its early stages, but the province is “exploring every available option” to hold the tech giant accountable for alleged harms.
“No company or corporate leader, no matter how large, should escape accountability when public safety is at stake,” said Sharma.
RCMP have said 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar shot her mother and 11-year-old half brother at a home in the small northeastern B.C. community on Feb. 10, before killing five children and a teacher’s aide at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School.
More than two dozen others were injured in the shooting.
OpenAI said several employees had flagged interactions Van Rootselaar had with its ChatGPT chatbot months before the shootings.
The company banned her account, but officials decided not to report the interactions to police.
OpenAI said it later discovered that Van Rootselaar had opened a second ChatGPT account.
CEO Sam Altman has issued a letter of apology to the community, and the company said it has updated its safety policies.
Families of several of the victims have already filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in California, where OpenAI is headquartered.
Legal documents related to the filings allege the attack was a predictable outcome of design choices OpenAI made to let ChatGPT engage with users about violence.
Sharma said the province is co-ordinating with the legal counsel of the families involved in that lawsuit, but any action the province takes would be separate from that litigation.
The province and the federal government have said they will each pitch in $100 million toward the cost of a new secondary school and other infrastructure in Tumbler Ridge.
Construction is set to begin this summer, starting with the removal of the existing school.
In the meantime, classes will be held in modular classrooms.
Premier David Eby said in April the RCMP were in the final stages of their investigation into the Tumbler Ridge shooting.
The B.C. RCMP said in an update Tuesday their investigation “remains active and ongoing.”
“Efforts are still underway to analyze the contents on electronic devices seized, as well as to collect all the data from multiple social media and online accounts. Investigators are working with specialized units and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) to complete the digital forensic analysis and investigative tasks,” said RCMP.
“The investigation has also completed a review of over 100 interview statements taken from students, educators, and first responders and are completing the firearms assessments,” said the statement.
RCMP said they haven’t ruled out the possibility that charges could be laid because of the investigation.
A B.C. Coroner’s inquest is expected to begin once the police investigation wraps up.
