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 at the scene from what appeared to be a self-inflicted injury.
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 directly 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. He added that large companies have a responsibility to cooperate with a coroner's inquest.
Representatives for OpenAI didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
British Columbia Premier David Eby told the Journal last week that there would be a public accounting of OpenAI's safety protocols and decision-making process as they relate to the Tumbler Ridge shooting. He said he would ensure that "what OpenAI knew and when" would be publicly disclosed.
Spokespeople for Eby didn't return a request for comment about the coroner's inquest. Eby is scheduled to speak this week with OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman, as is Canada's federal minister for artificial intelligence, Evan Solomon.
Under British Columbia's laws, a coroner's inquest is presided over by a coroner, alongside a five-to-seven-member jury. The inquest is tasked with determining the facts related to fatalities and make recommendations on preventing future deaths under similar circumstances. The jury can't assign fault.
Baidwan said it wasn't clear when the inquest would begin, adding that his office and the police would need to complete their investigations first.
OpenAI told Canadian authorities last week that it is implementing more flexible criteria for referring accounts to law-enforcement agencies. The company said it would also establish direct points of contact with Canadian law-enforcement officials, help direct users in distress to relevant support agencies and toughen its detection system to prevent attempts to evade safeguards.
Under the changes, OpenAI said it would have referred the shooting suspect's account to law enforcement if it was discovered today. OpenAI also disclosed that Van Rootselaar had a second ChatGPT account.
Solomon said OpenAI's pledges lacked key details related to implementation, and he wants more information on how suspicious interactions with the ChatGPT chatbot are escalated and how privacy considerations are balanced with public safety. He said federal officials are exploring steps to ensure that digital platforms in Canada follow a standard public-safety protocol.
Write to Paul Vieira at paul.vieira@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
03-03-26 1458ET
