Senior OpenAI officials were in Ottawa on Tuesday after being summoned to discuss the company’s decision not to notify police about posts by Jesse Van Rootselaar, an 18‑year‑old transgender woman who killed eight people in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, on Feb 10.
The company has confirmed that it shut down her account in June because of posts related to violent activity but did not notify the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It said nothing pointed towards an imminent attack.
Justice minister Sean Fraser, who was in the meeting, told reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday that if the company failed to act, Ottawa would.
“The message that we delivered, in no uncertain terms, was that we have an expectation that there are going to be changes implemented, and if they’re not forthcoming very quickly, the government’s going to be making changes,” Canadian media quoted Fraser as saying.
In a statement sent to AFP Wednesday, OpenAI called the Tumbler Ridge shootings “an unspeakable tragedy”.
“Over the past several months, we have taken steps to strengthen our safeguards and made changes to our law enforcement referral protocol for cases involving violent activities,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.
“But the ministers underscored that Canadians expect continued concrete action and we heard that message loud and clear,” the statement added.
“We’ve committed to follow up in the coming days with an update on additional steps we’re taking.”
Van Rootselaar killed eight people in the remote mining town with a population of 2,400.
She killed her mother and brother at the family home before heading to the local secondary school, where she shot dead five children and a teacher.
She died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after police entered the building.
Canada’s minister for artificial intelligence, Evan Solomon, summoned OpenAI leadership to Ottawa after learning the company banned Van Rootselaar’s account months before the shooting.
He said this week that the decision not to inform law enforcement beforehand was “very disturbing”, but the company said it has a very high threshold before deciding to involve police about alarming posts.