Minister to meet with OpenAI about Tumbler Ridge shooter's chat history

OTTAWA — Canada’s minister for artificial intelligence says he will meet with members of OpenAI’s security team to discuss safety protocols after reports the company did not alert Canadian police to the online activities it had flagged regarding the shooter responsible for the killings in Tumbler Ridge, B.C.

Evan Solomon called those reports “deeply disturbing” and says both he and his team got in touch with the company over the weekend.

“I have summoned the senior safety team from OpenAI in the United States to come here to Ottawa,” he announced on Parliament Hill.

“They will come here tomorrow, 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’s happening and what they do.”

OpenAI has confirmed that a ChatGPT account linked to Jesse Van Rootselaar has been flagged last June for activities that violated its policies.

Although the account was banned, the company confirmed in an email on Saturday that it had considered alerting Canadian police about the violence activity detected on the account, but ultimately did not after after determining that it did not meet the internal threshold to warrant a warning.

The company confirmed that it informed the RCMP about Van Rootselaar’s activities after the shooting.

The development, first reported in the Wall Street Journal, led British Columbia Premier David Eby to call it “profoundly disturbing.”

The RCMP has said that Van Rootselaar died from a self-inflicted injury after entering Tumbler Ridge Secondary School on Feb. 10, shooting and killing eight, most of whom were children, and injuring others.

The shooting has led to an outpouring of shock across the country and RCMP say the case remains under investigation.

Solomon said on Monday that he was working with federal colleagues across justice and public safety, as well as Canadian Heritage, which is the department tasked with evaluating options for new measures to better protect Canadians online, particularly youth.

“All options are on the table,” Solomon said on Monday.

“We have to hear from OpenAI and their protocols. We have to hear their safety protocols. We have to hear their escalation thresholds, and we are going to get more details on that.”

National Post, with files from Tiffany Crawford, of the Vancouver Sun

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our politics newsletter, First Reading, here.