Student Darian Quist takes flowers to a makeshift memorial for victims on Feb. 12, two days after a mass shooting at a school in Tumbler Ridge, B.C.Jennifer Gauthier/Reuters
Sam Altman, the chief executive officer of OpenAI, has formally apologized for his company’s role in the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C.
The apology was requested by B.C. Premier David Eby, who met with Mr. Altman and Tumbler Ridge Mayor Darryl Krakowka last month to discuss the Feb. 10 shooting that left nine people, including the shooter, dead.
The perpetrator’s conversations on OpenAI’s ChatGPT platform months earlier had raised red flags within the company, but were not reported to law enforcement.
“I am deeply sorry that we did not alert law enforcement to the account that was banned in June. While I know words can never be enough, I believe an apology is necessary to recognize the harm and irreversible loss your community has suffered,” Mr. Altman wrote in the letter dated April 23, and publicly released on Friday.
Mr. Eby, in a social media post Friday, said the statement is not enough. “The apology is necessary, and yet grossly insufficient for the devastation done to the families of Tumbler Ridge,” he wrote onX.
OpenAI did not tell Canadian authorities about troubling conversations that 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar had with ChatGPT months before fatally shooting eight people in the remote B.C. town and then killing herself. Six of the victims were under 14 years old. The shooter’s accounthad been closed down for a violation of ChatGPT’s usage policy, but the company later said the content did not reveal “credible and imminent planning” of violence according to policies that were in place at the time.
OpenAI is one of the most valuable privately held companies in the world. It is facing at least one lawsuit over the shooting.
The family of a girl critically injured in the shooting is suing over the company’s failure to alert authorities. Twelve-year-old Maya Gebala was shot in the neck and head in the attack in Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and remains in hospital.
“ChatGPT equipped the Shooter with information, guidance, and assistance to plan a mass casualty event like the Tumbler Ridge Mass Shooting including … the types of weapons to be used, and describing precedents from other mass casualty events or historical acts of violence,” the family’s civil claim says.
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The substance of the shooter’s conversations with ChatGPT are not public, and Mr. Eby said he deliberately did not ask about the content to avoid compromising a police investigation. Earlier this week, the Premier said the police investigation into the Tumbler Ridge shooting is in its final stages.
Matthew Bergman, a lawyer with the Seattle-based Social Media Victims Law Center, said he doesn’t think Mr. Altman’s apology will help protect the company from legal consequences. “What happened at Tumbler Ridge happened because OpenAI rushed platforms to market without adequate safety testing,” he said. “The fact that he is sorry is nice, but sorry doesn’t bring the kids back.”
Mr. Eby said he asked for the apology because, “OpenAI had the opportunity to notify authorities and potentially even to stop this tragedy from happening.”
However, he acknowledged there are other major issues including mental health supports and the shooter’s access to weapons in the home that are also under scrutiny. A coroner’s inquest is planned.
The Premier has also asked OpenAI to support his call for federal regulatory standards that would establish a “duty to report” minimum threshold across the country for all AI companies.
Mr. Altman did not, in his letter, commit to any specific action. Instead, he wrote that he is committed to “find ways to prevent tragedies like this in the future. Going forward, our focus will continue to be on working with all levels of government to help ensure something like this never happens again.”
A memorial for the victims of a mass shooting at a high school in Tumbler Ridge is seen at dusk on February 13, 2025. Jesse Winter/ The Globe and MailJesse Winter/The Globe and Mail