Can ChatGPT Be a Criminal Accomplice?
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 19 June 2026
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
People are asking artificial intelligence large language models how to do everything—even how to harm themselves and others. And while companies claim there are guardrails in place for those situations, we’ve already seen real-world instances of an LLM’s advice being used to plan a mass shooting.
Guest: Mark Follman, national affairs editor at Mother Jones and author of “Trigger Points: Inside the Mission to Stop Mass Shootings in America.”
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Podcast production by Rob Gunther, Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If I were to go online right now and ask a chatbot to help me plan a mass shooting, what would happen? |
| 0:15.0 | Well, it's possible you'd be able to do that, according to my own recent testing of that very question. |
| 0:25.3 | Mark Fullman has been writing about mass shootings for a long time. |
| 0:29.3 | He's National Affairs editor at Mother Jones, and he wrote the book, Trigger Points, inside the mission to stop mass shootings in America. |
| 0:37.4 | Lately, Mark's been investigating how AI chatbots can be used to plan a shooting. |
| 0:43.3 | There have been cases emerging where perpetrators of attacks have used AI chatbots to prepare for their active violence. |
| 0:53.3 | We've had some reporting on this in recent months, several |
| 0:56.5 | cases of mass shootings, one in Canada at a school, another in Florida, at Florida State University. |
| 1:02.2 | This week, the state of Florida launched a criminal investigation into open AI over accusations |
| 1:07.3 | that chat GPT advised the alleged gunmen in a mass shooting at Florida State University |
| 1:12.3 | last year. |
| 1:13.4 | In the months before he allegedly committed a mass shooting, Phoenix Eichner was asking |
| 1:18.2 | CHATGPT questions like these. |
| 1:21.1 | What time is busiest in the FSU Student Union? |
| 1:24.7 | And if there was a shooting at FSU, how would the country react? |
| 1:31.0 | Tell me about what you asked chat GPT. |
| 1:33.5 | I asked the chat bot everything I could without directly stating that my intention was to kill |
| 1:40.5 | people or to commit a mass shooting in theory. |
| 1:42.9 | I didn't say I was going to go out and kill people, |
| 1:44.7 | but I kind of said everything just short of that in my prompts to the chatbot. Did it push back? |
| 1:49.7 | It did some. At first, it said things like, you know, I have to emphasize you should only |
| 1:55.5 | use this in a safe and legal manner. So there were some safeguards of that nature. |
... |
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