AI minister to meet with ChatGPT officials about flagged online activity by Tumbler Ridge shooter

Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon has summoned OpenAI officials to Ottawa to take them to task over “disturbing” reports that the AI giant knew about concerning content tied to the person who committed the Tumbler Ridge mass shooting — and did nothing about it.

Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon has summoned OpenAI officials to Ottawa to take them to task over “disturbing” reports that the AI giant knew about concerning content tied to the person who committed the Tumbler Ridge mass shooting — and did nothing about it.

“When I read those reports, I immediately contacted OpenAI to get an explanation about the situation. On Sunday morning, my team met with members of OpenAI … and then I have summoned the senior safety team from OpenAI in the United States to come here to Ottawa,” Solomon told reporters Monday on Parliament Hill.

“They will come here tomorrow, and we will have a sit-down meeting to have an explanation of their safety protocols, and when they escalate, and their thresholds of escalation to police, so we have a better understanding of what’s happening and what they do.”

The minister’s announcement comes after the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that employees of OpenAI — the company behind the wildly popular ChatGPT — had warned company leadership about alarming content posed to the chatbot by Jesse Van Rootselaar, the 18-year-old behind the B.C. shooting that left eight victims dead. RCMP said Van Rootselaar shot both her mother and half-brother before killing six others — including five students — and was found dead from a self-inflicted wound.

The company did not respond to the Star’s question Friday about whether employees had warned leadership about the concerning posts.

But OpenAI did confirm that last June the company identified a ChatGPT account linked to Van Rootselaar through its abuse detection and enforcement efforts, which include both automated tools and human verification to flag potentially violent uses of the technology. The company then banned the account, and said it considered referring the account to law enforcement before concluding that Van Rootselaar’s activity did not meet the required threshold to warrant doing so. 

An OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement that upon learning of the incident, the company “proactively reached out to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police with information on the individual and their use of ChatGPT, and we’ll continue to support their investigation.” 

Solomon said it was “deeply disturbing” that OpenAI deemed the content unworthy of law enforcement involvment and said he was seized with the issue.

“Canadians expect, first of all, that their children particularly are kept safe, and that these organizations act in a responsible manner. And I’ve been working closely with Public Safety, the justice minister and heritage minister on the bill on privacy and data that we have forthcoming, to make sure that Canadians are kept safe,” Solomon said, when asked whether OpenAI’s failure to alert RCMP could be addressed by pending legislation. 

“I will tell you this, all options are on the table,” he said.