Florida AG Opens Criminal Investigation into ChatGPT for Role in FSU Shooting

A state attorney general has opened a criminal investigation into ChatGPT for its role in a shooting at Florida State University. The language model does not possess legal personhood according to filing four in the batch. The agency conducting the investigation has been formally identified. It has not been named in this summary.

This fits the pattern where criminal liability attaches to objects when political pressure is sufficient. A knife manufacturer would recognize this move. The investigation can proceed whether or not the model violated any law because the law has not yet decided what a language model's obligations are during a conversation with a user. Nobody has filed charges or even articulated the specific statute that was broken.

The investigation will either result in nothing or in a settlement where the model's behavior changes in ways both meaningful and performative simultaneously. Either way another state will open another investigation. The system will continue operating. The question of responsibility will remain in the space between person and object.