VANCOUVER — A civil lawsuit has been filed in the Vancouver Law Courts against several entities associated with OpenAI, the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company behind technologies like ChatGPT, by three plaintiffs connected to a recent high-profile school shooting in British Columbia..The claim, registered on behalf of Cia Edmonds and her daughters Dahlia Gebala and Maya Gebala, lists as defendants the OpenAI Foundation, OpenAI GP LLC, OpenAI Group PBC, OpenAI Holdings LLC and OpenAI OpCo LLC.Details of the allegations in the suit were not immediately available, but the filing comes amid ongoing criticism and concern as it relates to AI companies' roles in content moderation, misinformation and potential societal harms.Maya Gebala, 12, remains in critical condition at B.C. Children's Hospital in Vancouver following the Feb. 10 mass shooting at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in northeastern BC, where she was shot in the head and neck while attempting to lock the library door to protect classmates.Eight people were killed in the attack, carried out by 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, who was found dead at the scene. It marked Canada's deadliest school shooting in decades.Cia Edmonds, Maya's mother, has been providing public updates on her daughter's condition via social media, describing Maya as a "climber, builder, and hockey star" who is fighting for her life after emergency brain surgery. Dahlia Gebala, Maya's younger sister, was also at the school during the lockdown and has been dealing with trauma from the incident, according to family posts.Family members of the plaintiffs have not publicly commented on the lawsuit. A GoFundMe page for Maya's recovery has raised nearly $500,000 as of Monday..OpenAI, founded in 2015 as a non-profit research lab before restructuring into for-profit entities, has faced multiple lawsuits in recent years over issues including data privacy, copyright infringement and the societal impacts of its AI models.In a recent interview with CBC, BC Premier David Eby recalled meeting a grieving father of a Tumbler Ridge victim and blamed OpenAI, in part at least, for the tragedy in Tumbler Ridge."I'm quite angry," the premier said, "it seems they could have prevented this."
