By Paul Vieira
OTTAWA--British Columbia will hold a public inquest into last month's school shooting in a remote town that is likely to draw closer scrutiny of OpenAI's safety protocols and its relationship with the police.
Jatinder Baidwan, the province's chief coroner, said the inquest would examine the circumstances surrounding the shooting in Tumbler Ridge, where eight people were killed and dozens injured. Police identified Jesse Van Rootselaar as the main suspect. Van Rootselaar, an 18-year-old transgender woman, was found dead from what appeared to be a self-inflicted injury at the scene.
Among the factors the inquest might review, Baidwan said, is how information is shared by digital platforms and emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, with law-enforcement authorities. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Van Rootselaar's interactions with OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot fueled concerns among some company employees about potential real-world violence. OpenAI shut down Van Rootselaar's account, but it didn't notify police.
"If anything is pertinent to the circumstances of death, it doesn't matter what the temporal association was," Baidwan said. "We can explore it, and we will."
The chief coroner didn't answer questions about the possibility of OpenAI executives being called to testify and be asked to produce records, such as transcripts of Van Rootselaar's interactions with ChatGPT.
"We will glean exactly what happened in all sorts of ways, and we will be able to go back in time and look to see what shaped the individual, the perpetrator, in becoming the person that they were before they did what they did," Baidwan said.
Representatives for OpenAI didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Write to Paul Vieira at paul.vieira@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
03-03-26 1412ET
