Florida AG initiates criminal probe into role ChatGPT played in Florida State University slaying

James Uthmeier, Florida's Republican attorney general, said that if prosecutors were looking at a person communicating with the suspect, they would charge that person with murder.

By Kevin Killough

Published: April 21, 2026 1:01pm

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has opened an investigation into the role ChatGPT may have played in a shooting last year at Florida State University. The investigation also targets the parent company of ChatGPT, OpenAI.

The Republican attorney general said in a news conference Tuesday in Tampa that a review of messages between the chatbot and a man accused of killing two people in the incident suggest that the AI platform offered "significant advice to the shooter," The New York Times reported.

Uthmeier said that if prosecutors were looking at a person communicating with the suspect, they would charge that person with murder.

Phoenix Ikner, who was 20 at the time of the killings, is in custody awaiting trial on charges including murder and attempted murder.