Artificial intelligence is on everyone’s lips these days. Whether you’re talking about ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or a number of others, AI is all over the news and is everywhere online (including your search engine results, if you’ll notice).
Now, I’ll be the first to say that AI has its uses, but like any other tool, it has its limitations, too. It’s not the end-all-be-all of the world.
Oddly, people both for and against wider AI usage in the world assume that AI can do everything (or will be able to soon), which leads us to today’s story.
If you’ll remember, there was a horrible mass shooting in Canada in February 2026. ChatGPT was “consulted” by the alleged shooter, and the victims’ families are upset that the company behind ChatGPT, OpenAI, didn’t notify law enforcement when the alleged shooter looked up terms which could have indicated that they were planning the shooting. You can find more details about that here.
It’s completely understandable that the families are upset. It was an absolutely horrible situation. Nine people died. More were injured. These people are grieving.
Now, though, the families have taken additional steps to go after OpenAI over the incident, and these steps should concern you. Ryan Patrick Jones and Diana Novak Jones with Reuters write,
Family members of victims of one of Canada’s deadliest mass shootings sued OpenAI and CEO Sam ​Altman in U.S. court on Wednesday, alleging the company knew eight months before the attack that the shooter was planning it on ChatGPT but did not warn ‌police.
Seven lawsuits, filed in federal court in San Francisco, accuse OpenAI leaders of not alerting police because it would have exposed the volume of violence-related conversations on ChatGPT and potentially jeopardized the company’s path to a nearly $1 trillion initial public offering.
So, let’s talk about the problems that these lawsuits could cause you and me.
If this lawsuit is decided in the favor of the families, that could very well cause all AI companies to more heavily police users of their services. That could mean increased harassment from law enforcement towards innocent legal gun owners.
The fact that this case was filed in not-exactly-gun-friendly San Francisco makes it even more concerning because it seems that a verdict against OpenAI could be more likely there, and that could influence AI companies everywhere.
To put it bluntly, this lawsuit has the potential to cause problems for legal gun owners because of the actions of one deranged person.
This case is one to watch closely.
