(LifeSiteNews) — The families of the victims of a brutal school shooting at the hands of a suspected “transgender”-identifying male killer in a remote Canadian town are suing OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, in a California court.
In total, several lawsuits were filed in a San Francisco courthouse on April 29, with over $1 billion in damages being sought, according to lawyers.
The lawsuit is related to one of Canada’s deadliest school shootings. As reported by LifeSiteNews, the Canadian shooter suspect, identified as 18-year-old male Jesse Van Rootselaar, went on a rampage on February 10, killing eight, mostly children, and wounding no less than 27 people.
Van Rootselaar, who later killed himself, dressed as a female. It is the second-worst school shooting in Canadian history. Many of the victims are still on life support.
The lawsuits allege negligence, wrongful death, and product liability and directly accuse OpenAI and its leaders of aiding and abetting the shooting.
Altman is a homosexual who is “married” to another man, procured a baby boy through surrogacy, and has expressed radical transhumanist views, and ChatGPT, a chatbot developed by OpenAI, is known for left-wing bias.
The lawsuits say that OpenAI did not flag disturbing content posted by the shooter online. They allege that the company was silent about contacting the police about the shooter because it would have shown just how prevalent violent dialogue is on ChatGPT.
OpenAI is soon looking to go public, and doing so is expected to make over $1 trillion for the company. This lawsuit could impact this.
One of the wrongful death plaintiffs is the father of Abel Mwansa Jr., who was a Grade 7 student killed.
The lawsuit has also been filed on behalf of 12-year-old Maya Gebala, who is recovering from shots to the head and has been left with serious brain injuries.
According to a statement from the law firm Rice Parsons Leoni & Elliott LLP, the plaintiffs have chosen to go with seven overlapping lawsuits due to limits on damages in Canadian courts.
According to lawyer John Rice, his clients will be represented by the Chicago law firm run by a lawyer named Jay Edelson, who is a specialist in class action and other lawsuits.
An additional 24 lawsuits from those impacted by the shooting are forthcoming as well.
Lawsuits say OpenAI did not flag the authorities about shooter despite known red flags
According to Rice, the lawsuits aim to make sure that there can never again be an “AI-predicted and facilitated mass shooting.”
“Based on what we understand the perpetrator to have discussed with ChatGPT, this murderous rampage was specific, predictable, and preventable – and OpenAI had the chance to stop it,” said Rice.
“Nothing will ever restore what these families have lost but they have together come as a community from a small, humble, hardworking mining town in the Canadian north to stand up to OpenAI.”
For its part, OpenAI did contact police regarding Van Rootselaar, but only after the shooting. According to the company, the killer’s account was taken down in June, and Van Rootselaar opened up a second account to get around his first ban.
Altman of OpenAI apologized last week for his company not contacting the police.
“I am deeply sorry that we did not alert law enforcement to the account that was banned in June,” Altman wrote in his letter to the Tumbler Ridge community.
“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.”
Canada’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police were not aware of the OpenAI account until after the shooting, because, according to the company, it had not identified a “credible“ or ”imminent” threat of a plan to go on a real killing rampage.
Besides killing himself, Van Rootselaar killed his mother as well as his half-brother before the killing rampage at the school.
A GoFundMe has been established to help with medical expenses.