Canadian officials have summoned leaders from OpenAI for a meeting following revelations that the company did not inform the authorities about a user whose account had been suspended months before she committed a mass murder in British Columbia.
The country’s minister of artificial intelligence, Evan Solomon, said on Monday that he would meet in Ottawa with senior safety officials from OpenAI on Tuesday seeking explanations about safety protocols and thresholds for when information is passed on to the police.
Mr. Solomon said he was “deeply disturbed” by what he had learned of the company’s actions involving Jesse Van Rootselaar, the 18-year-old who the authorities say killed eight people in the rural community of Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia.
Ms. Van Rootselaar, shot and killed her mother and half brother at the family home this month before driving to a school and killing five children and one educator. Two other students were injured, one of whom remains in serious condition in a Vancouver children’s hospital. The suspect killed herself at the school as police officers responded to the shooting, the authorities said.
Ms. Van Rootselaar displayed a fascination with weapons and extreme violence, according to a review of her social media accounts by The New York Times, and documented her experiences with mental health issues.
Messages sent by Ms. Van Rootselaar to her ChatGPT chatbot raised flags internally at OpenAI last June, according to the company.
After the company’s abuse detection system, which uses automated tools and investigations by staff members, picked up on concerning messages from her account, Ms. Van Rootselaar was banned from the platform, the company said. It did not provide details about the messages.
Ms. Van Rootselaar’s use of ChatGPT before the mass shooting was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
OpenAI said it had considered informing law enforcement about the shooter’s account but ultimately decided not to do so because the company determined that there was no credible or imminent planning on the part of the user.
OpenAI says it tries to balance public safety against protecting the privacy of users. It says it also wants to avoid being overly aggressive about issuing warnings that could cause distress by leading to law enforcement officials showing up unannounced at a user’s home.
But the company’s decision not to reach out the authorities in this case, according to The Journal, raised concerns among some employees.
OpenAI said that it did contact the Royal Canadian Mounted Police with information about Ms. Rootselaar’s account activity after the company learned of the mass shooting.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the federal agency leading the shooting investigation, is seeking an order to force relevant digital platforms and artificial intelligence companies to preserve potential evidence in the Tumbler Ridge case.
OpenAI does not have an office in Canada, but has been courting officials as part of the company’s efforts to expand. Weeks before the Feb. 10 shooting, representatives from OpenAI had scheduled a Feb. 11 meeting with officials in British Columbia to discuss a potential office in the province.
The day after that meeting, the company asked for contact information for the police, according to a statement from the premier’s office, but did not alert the government that it might have potential evidence about the shootings.
“Reports that allege OpenAI had related intelligence before the shootings in Tumbler Ridge took place are profoundly disturbing for the victims’ families and all British Columbians,” David Eby, the premier of British Columbia, said in a statement.
“We will use all powers of government to ensure that police have the tools they need to investigate every aspect of this horrific tragedy,” Mr. Eby said.
(The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023, accusing them of copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The two companies have denied those claims.)
Cade Metz contributed reporting.
Vjosa Isai is a reporter for The Times based in Toronto, where she covers news from across Canada.
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