Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced a criminal investigation into OpenAI during a press conference in Tampa on Tuesday."This morning, we are announcing that we are launching a criminal investigation into OpenAI and ChatGPT and will be sending criminal subpoenas to OpenAI, probably right now," said Uthmeier.Tampa Bay 28 was at the event and streamed it live on the website and Facebook.WATCH press conference Florida AG announces criminal investigation into OpenAI Florida AG announces criminal investigation into OpenAI at Tampa press conferenceThe AG office issued a subpoena for OpenAI for information from March 2024 through April 17, 2026, for all policies and internal training materials regarding user threats of harm to others, harm to self, and cooperation with law enforcement. They also issued a subpoena for any and all media related to the FSU shooting on April 17, 2025.Florida is leading the way in cracking down on AIs use in criminal behavior, and if ChatGPT were a person, it would be facing charges for murder, said AG Uthmeier. This criminal investigation will determine whether OpenAI bears criminal responsibility for ChatGPTs actions in the shooting at Florida State University last year.Tampa Bay 28 received the following statement from OpenAI Spokesperson Kate Waters:"Last year's mass shooting at Florida State University was a tragedy, but ChatGPT is not responsible for this terrible crime. After learning of the incident, we identified a ChatGPT account believed to be associated with the suspect and proactively shared this information with law enforcement. We continue to cooperate with authorities. In this case, ChatGPT provided factual responses to questions with information that could be found broadly across public sources on the internet, and it did not encourage or promote illegal or harmful activity. ChatGPT is a general-purpose tool used by hundreds of millions of people every day for legitimate purposes. We work continuously to strengthen our safeguards to detect harmful intent, limit misuse, and respond appropriately when safety risks arise," said OpenAI Spokesperson Kate Waters.This is a developing story. Tampa Bay 28 will provide more details as they become available. ...read more read less