AI incident #1489 ·

ChatGPT Was Reportedly Used in Planning School Stabbing in Pirkkala, Finland, That Injured Three Pupils

What happened

In May 2025, a 16-year-old boy stabbed three 14-year-old girls at Vähäjärvi School in Pirkkala, Finland. Same-day reporting said a manifesto attributed to the suspect claimed he used ChatGPT while planning the attack. Later court reporting said police found hundreds of pre-attack searches or queries described as involving AI, including topics related to stabbing, anatomy, school attacks, police procedures, evidence concealment, and manifestos.

Only the incident metadata is stored here. The underlying news reports are on the AI Incident Database (CC BY-SA 4.0); use the links above to read them.

News reports (13)

Coverage catalogued by the AI Incident Database. Titles link to the original publisher; the text is not reproduced here.

  1. Three pupils injured in Finnish school attack, police say
    reuters.com · Essi Lehto, Anna Ringstrom, Elviira Luoma · AIID #7292
  2. Poliisi jatkaa Pirkkalan väkivallanteon tutkintaa aktiivisesti
    poliisi.fi · Sisä-Suomen poliisilaitos, Inner Finland Police Department · AIID #7296
  3. Poliisi tulee esittämään Pirkkalan väkivallanteosta epäiltyä vangittavaksi
    poliisi.fi · Sisä-Suomen poliisilaitos, Inner Finland Police Department · AIID #7298

Who was involved

Alleged harmed party
Vahajarvi School Pupils, Vahajarvi School Community, Pirkkala School Stabbing Victims, Students, High School Students, Educational Communities

Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)

Causal entity
AI
Intent
Unintentional
Timing
Post-deployment
Harm level
Sectors
Countries

Risk entries describing this failure mode

Entries from the MIT AI Risk Repository coded to subdomain 4.3.

  • Impersonation/identity theft

    "Impersonation/identity theft - Theft of an individual, group or organisation’s identity by a third-party in order to defraud, mock or otherwise harm them."

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • IP/copyright loss

    "IP/copyright loss - Misuse or abuse of an individual or organisation’s intellectual property, including copyright, trademarks, and patents."

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Dehumanisation/objectification

    "Dehumanisation/objectification - Use or misuse of a technology system to depict and/or treat people as not human, less than human, or as objects."

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Defamation/libel/slander

    "Defamation/libel/slander - Use of a technology system to create, facilitate or amplify false perception(s) about an individual, group, or organisation."

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Financial and business

    "Financial and Business - Use or misuse of a technology system in a manner that damages the financial interests of an individual or group, or which causes strategic, operational, legal or financial harm to a business or...

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Cheating/plagiarism

    "Cheating/plagiarism - Use of another person’s or group’s words or ideas without consent and/or acknowledgement."

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Cybersecurity

    "LLMs may exacerbate cybersecurity risks in various ways (Newman, 2024). Firstly, LLMs may significantly amplify the effectiveness of deceptive operations aimed at tricking people into disclosing sensitive information or...

    Foundational Challenges in Assuring Alignment and Safety of Large Language Models (Anwar2024)

  • Domain-Specific Misuses

    "Improvements in LLMs may exert greater pressure to apply LLMs to various domains, such as health and education (Eloundou et al., 2023). Crude efforts to use LLMs in such domains, however, may incur harm and should be di...

    Foundational Challenges in Assuring Alignment and Safety of Large Language Models (Anwar2024)

Incidents in the same risk subdomain

All incidents in this subdomain