April 29 (UPI) -- The families of seven people killed or injured in a February school shooting in British Columbia, Canada, filed lawsuits against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, on Wednesday in a California court, saying the company failed to warn authorities about the shooter's interactions with ChatGPT.
Jessie Van Rootselaar killed five students and a teacher at a high school in Tumbler Ridge before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police said she killed her mother and stepbrother at home before going to the school, CNN reported. It was the deadliest school shooting in the country in decades.
The separate lawsuits allege that OpenAI failed to alert local police or other authorities to the shooter's conversations on gun violence scenarios with ChatGPT, even though the company's safety team flagged them months before,the BBC reported. Last week, Altman apologized to the community for the lapse.
"I am deeply sorry that we did not alert law enforcement," he wrote in an open letter. "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."
One of the lawsuits filed Wednesday replaces a lawsuit filed previously in Canada by Cia Edmonds, the mother of Maya Gebala, 12, who was in the hospital with gunshot injuries, CNN reported.
