Florida Criminally Investigating ChatGPT Over Role in School Shooting
Florida Criminally Investigating ChatGPT Over Role in School Shooting
The man accused of killing two people at Florida State University in 2025 allegedly exchanged messages with OpenAI’s chatbot before the attack.
Florida became the first state to criminally investigate an AI model on Tuesday, and Attorney General James Uthmeier’s charges could lead to big changes in how the technology is regulated.
Uthmeier, a Republican, launched a criminal probe into ChatGPT and its parent company, OpenAI, following a mass shooting at Florida State University that took place in April 2025.
Two people died, and six others were injured in the shooting, including at least one student. All of those injured have since been released from hospital, and the suspect, 20-year-old FSU student Phoenix Ikner, is in custody.
Prosecutors reviewed Ikner’s devices and claimed he spoke to the chatbot extensively. While Ikner does not appear to have been driven into “AI psychosis,” as some mentally unstable individuals have, he allegedly talked to the chatbot multiple times about the shooting.
ChatGPT “offered significant advice to the shooter before he committed such heinous crimes,” Uthmeier said. One message involved the suspect quizzing ChatGPT about a gun’s power at close range, and which ammunition was needed to load it.
On the day of the crime, Ikner allegedly asked the chatbot how America would react to a shooting at Florida State, and when the most crowded time was at the student union, the area of the campus where the shooting took place.
“If this were a person on the other end of the screen, we would be charging them with murder,” Uthmeier said at a press conference.
While Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis isn’t exactly a favorite of the left, he has been at the forefront of state AI regulation. DeSantis has asked the state legislature to come up with legal AI guardrails in a special session next week.
But the country’s executive branch has taken the opposite stance. President Donald Trump has pushed to deregulate AI and force states to comply with federal policy. We’ll see which GOP sect ends up victorious, but Florida’s leadership on the issue is a welcome development.
Military Is About to Run Out of Ammunition Thanks to Trump’s Iran War
The U.S. military has also used up almost all of its stockpile of key types of missile.
The U.S. has significantly depleted its missile reserve during its war with Iran, sparking concerns that the military could be caught empty-handed if another conflict arises in the next few years.
The Pentagon has used at least 45 percent of its Precision Strike Missile stockpile, at least half of its THAAD missiles, and nearly 50 percent of its Patriot air defense interceptor missiles, according to a report published Tuesday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The number of missiles that remain are expected to be enough to continue the war in Iran, even if peace negotiations fall apart, but they are too diminished to thwart another major world power, such as China.
“The high munitions expenditures have created a window of increased vulnerability in the western Pacific,” Mark Cancian, a retired U.S. Marine Corps Colonel and a CSIS report author, told CNN. “It will take one to four years to replenish these inventories and several years after that to expand them to where they need to be.”
Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told CNN that the military “has everything it needs to execute at the time and place of the President’s choosing.”
“Since President Trump took office, we have executed multiple successful operations across combatant commands while ensuring the U.S. military possesses a deep arsenal of capabilities to protect our people and our interests,” Parnell said.
The war with Iran is currently in its seventh week, but Defense Department officials first raised concerns about America’s missile supply more than a month ago. In a closed-door meeting with lawmakers on March 3, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine reportedly said that Iran’s Shahed attack drones had proved a more difficult problem than initially predicted. One source told CNN in early March that the U.S. has been “burning” through long-range precision-guided missiles in order to fend off the drones.
Shortly afterward, European Union defense officials warned that the U.S. would no longer be capable of supplying missiles to its allies amid the war with Iran, stressing that the continent would need to develop its own missile manufacturing sector in order to adequately fill its supply without Washington’s help.
But the reality has not aligned with the White House’s rhetoric. Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that the U.S. has a “virtually unlimited” supply of missiles, capable of attacking Iran “forever.” Nonetheless, his administration has placed orders with private contractors in order to replenish America’s stockpiles, though some weapons reserves are expected to take years before they return to prewar levels.
Fed Chair Nominee Caught in Massive Lie on What Trump Told Him
Kevin Warsh said he had not discussed cutting interest rates with Donald Trump.
Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego should be commended for some excellent fact-checking of Trump crony Kevin Warsh on Tuesday.
Warsh is Trump’s pick to be the next chair of the Federal Reserve after Jerome Powell’s term expires in May. During Warsh’s Senate committee confirmation hearing, Gallego tried to suss out whether Warsh was going to put the president’s political interests ahead of the country’s economic health.
“Earlier today, you said to Senator [John] Kennedy that President Trump never demanded you to cut interest rates in your job interview. Is that your sworn testimony?” Gallego asked.
“That is, Senator,” Warsh said.
“Well, someone here is lying, then,” Gallego replied. “It’s either you or President Trump. Because in an interview with The Wall Street Journal of December 12, President Trump confirmed he pressed you on your commitment to support interest rate cuts.”
Gallego helpfully cited the Journal article for Warsh: “During a 45-minute meeting … the president pressed Warsh on whether he could........
