<\/p>\n
Canada\u2019s artificial intelligence minister says he has summoned representatives from the technology company OpenAI after the company declined to alert police after suspending the account of a user who became the perpetrator of one of the country\u2019s the worst-ever school shootings<\/a>.<\/p>\n Evan Solomon says he is \u201cdeeply disturbed\u201d by reports<\/a> the company, which operates the popular ChatGPT chatbot, suspended the account of Jesse Van Rootselaar over the \u201cfurtherance of violent activities\u201d in June 2025 but did not reach out to Canadian law enforcement.<\/p>\n On 10 February, the 18-year-old killed eight people in the town of Tumbler Ridge. Among the victims were five students<\/a>, aged 12 to 13 and a 39-year-old teaching assistant.<\/a> Before attacking the school, Van Rootselaar killed her mother and half-brother at their nearby home.<\/p>\n The shooter had described violent scenarios involving guns to ChatGPT over several days in June, which an automated review system flagged, according to the Wall Street Journal<\/a>. But the San Francisco tech company said it felt the account activity did not identify \u201ccredible or imminent planning\u201d and so banned her account, but did not notify authorities in Canada.<\/p>\n Solomon told reporters he contacted OpenAI<\/a> over the weekend to arrange a meeting in Ottawa and expects the company\u2019s top safety representatives to explain how it decides to forward cases to law enforcement.<\/p>\n \u201cThey will come here [Tuesday], and we will have a sit-down meeting to have an explanation of their safety protocols and when they escalate and their thresholds of escalation to police, so we have a better understanding of what\u2019s happening and what they do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Canada\u2019s federal government is currently weighing how it might \u2013 if at all \u2013 regulate the use of immensely popular artificial intelligence chatbots, including the extent to which minors can freely use the products.<\/p>\n Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that staff at the tech company had considered alerting Canadian police last year about the activities of Van Rootselaar. OpenAI said in a statement that after learning of the school shooting, employees reached out to the RCMP with information on the individual and their use of ChatGPT<\/a>. Van Rootselaar also used the game Roblox<\/a> to create a virtual mall full of weapons that allowed players to shoot one another in advance of the Tumbler Ridge attack.<\/p>\n While the company framed its decision to reach out to the RCMP as proactive, its handling of the issue has nonetheless come under fire.<\/p>\n British Columbia\u2019s provincial government confirmed to the Guardian that while a representative of OpenAI met with officials one day after the shooting in a pre-planned meeting, the company did not reveal that it had suspended the shooter\u2019s ChatGPT<\/a> account months earlier due to its violent nature. The meeting was first reported by the Globe and Mail.<\/p>\n It was only two days after the mass shooting that representatives with OpenAI reached out to the province, for help in contacting the RCMP.<\/p>\n David Eby, the British Columbia premier, said in a statement the pain the families are enduring is \u201cunimaginable\u201d and that revelations OpenAI had \u201crelated intelligence\u201d before the shooting is \u201cprofoundly disturbing for the victims\u2019 families and all British Columbians\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Canada #seeks #answers #OpenAI #failing #alert #police #suspending #school #shooters #account #Tumbler #Ridge #school #shooting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Canada\u2019s artificial intelligen… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24535"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}