OpenAI’s chatbot fed the school shooter’s violent fantasies and planning up to the massacre, our investigation reveals.
In June 2025, Jesse Van Rootselaar received an email notification from OpenAI. Van Rootselaar had been using ChatGPT to discuss committing potential acts of violence—including a mass shooting at a shopping mall—and now OpenAI had banned that account. But the troubled teen living in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, was not deterred and soon logged back on with a second account.
In case anybody doubted the corporation that was actively complicit.
Can’t remove or deflect blame from the actual perpetrator. AI is often used for good. My wife used it to learn how to start a business and the accounting system. AI is like a car, a public road, a kitchen knife, a gun, etc - it can be used for many purposes, but it is who uses it for what, which differs. Same goes for AI hacking other companies. The blame sits squarely with that AI’s owner who still had it connected to the Internet. AI is like a toddler, it is not intelligent, or even close to superintelligent, it is artificial.