Families of seven victims killed in a mass shooting at a secondary school in British Columbia have filed lawsuits against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, alleging the company was negligent in failing to report the shooter's threatening behavior to authorities.

The lawsuits, filed Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco, center on 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, who carried out the attack at the school in Tumbler Ridge. According to the legal filings, OpenAI employees flagged Van Rootselaar's ChatGPT account eight months before the shooting occurred, determining it posed "a credible and specific threat of gun violence against real people."

The plaintiffs allege that OpenAI had knowledge of the shooter's violent intentions through conversations on the ChatGPT platform, with employees reportedly flagging the account for "gun violence activity and planning." Despite this internal awareness, the company allegedly failed to notify law enforcement or other authorities about the potential threat.

Sam Altman, OpenAI's CEO, recently issued an apology after it emerged that the teen had been banned from ChatGPT for violent activities prior to the shooting, but police were never alerted to the concerning behavior. The lawsuits accuse both OpenAI and Altman of negligence and claim they abetted the mass shooting through their failure to act.

The case highlights ongoing questions about the responsibilities of AI companies when their platforms are used to discuss or plan violent acts. The eight people killed in the attack were students at the British Columbia secondary school, according to the court documents.