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Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon says he was left “disappointed” following a Tuesday meeting with senior officials from OpenAI.
The meeting was arranged after it was revealed that the California company had banned the Tumbler Ridge, B.C., mass shooter’s ChatGPT account months before the murders — but hadn’t informed police about its contents.
“We were disappointed that they did not have substantial answers for us, and we asked them to have substantial answers,” Solomon told CBC News following the meeting.
OpenAI banned Jesse Van Rootselaar’s account in June, but said its activities didn’t meet the company’s threshold for informing law enforcement at the time because they didn’t identify credible or imminent planning.
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Van Rootselaar’s account was banned after it was flagged for troubling posts, including scenarios of gun violence.
“We expected [OpenAI] to have some concrete proposals that we could understand, that [they] had changed their protocols in the wake of the horrific tragedy in Tumbler Ridge. But we did not hear any substantial new safety protocols outside of some changes to their model,” Solomon said.
The minister said he anticipates further meetings with the company to receive further updates. But he also didn’t rule out the possibility of the government introducing its own regulations.
“All options for us are on the table, because at the end of the day, Canadians want to feel safe.”
OpenAI previously said it contacted the RCMP after the shooting on Feb. 10, when Van Rootselaar killed her mother and half-brother at the family home before going to the local secondary school, where she killed five students, an educational assistant and then herself.
A spokesperson for OpenAI said it had taken steps to update its policies and thanked the ministers involved “for a frank discussion,” according to a statement provided after Tuesday’s meeting.
“The ministers underscored that Canadians expect continued concrete action and we heard that message loud and clear. We’ve committed to follow up in the coming days with an update on additional steps we’re taking.”
Other ministers make similar comments
Marc Miller, the minister of Canadian identity and culture, appeared from the meeting before Solomon and said he was troubled by what he had heard from the company’s representatives.
“I think there’s a lot that remains in the hands of the OpenAI folks, and the government will act,” Miller said.
Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree, who was also in the meeting, said, “Nothing substantial came out of it other than an expectation from us that they need to do a lot better.”
Anandasangaree said he expects more meetings to follow.
B.C. Premier David Eby told CBC News Network’s Power & Politics Tuesday that he is “quite angry” about how OpenAI handled the situation.
B.C. Premier David Eby says families in Tumbler Ridge are asking themselves if their kids would still be alive if the developer of ChatGPT had alerted law enforcement after banning the shooter’s account months prior. Eby describes his anger after experiences that have ‘changed me forever’ and says that while he can’t be sure from the outside, ‘it sure looks like’ OpenAI could have prevented the tragedy.
“From the outside, it looks like they had a chance to prevent this. I don’t know that for sure, but it sure looks like it. And I want to share with them the devastation that they caused on behalf of these families,” Eby told guest host Peter Armstrong.
The federal government has attempted to bring forward legislation focused on preventing harm online in the past, but those bills were disrupted due to federal elections.
Prior to the Tumbler Ridge tragedy, the Liberals had said they were working on a new online harms bill.
