AI incident ·
ChatGPT Was Reportedly Used to Plan Zürich-Oerlikon Knife Attack That Seriously Injured Three Five-Year-Old Boys
In brief
An AI system built by OpenAI, Large language model developers and 1 other and deployed by Zürich-Oerlikon child stabbing suspect and Violent attack planners and assailants allegedly harmed Victims of violent attack planners and assailants, Three boys injured in Zürich-Oerlikon knife attack and 3 others.
- Risk domain
- Not classified
- Occurred
- Coverage
- 4 reports
What happened
Before an October 2024 knife attack in Zürich-Oerlikon, Switzerland, a 23-year-old student reportedly used ChatGPT to ask about consequences of killing random stabbing victims, where and when to find children, and human anatomy. He later stabbed three five-year-old boys, seriously injuring them. Prosecutors charged him with attempted murder; the allegations about his AI-assisted planning come from the indictment.
Laws that address this harm
No recorded instrument yet addresses this use case where it happened. See the open queue.
Matched from the record's risk domain and country to the instruments recorded here. A reviewer can correct the match in the repository (data/external/incident_overrides.yaml).
News reports (4)
Titles link to the original publisher; report text is not reproduced here.
Who was involved
- Alleged developer
- OpenAI Large language model developers Chatbot developers
- Alleged harmed party
- Victims of violent attack planners and assailants Three boys injured in Zürich-Oerlikon knife attack Minors Men and boys Boys
AI systems implicated
OpenAI large language modelsLarge language modelsChatGPTChatbotsAI search technology
Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)
- Risk domain
- —
- Risk subdomain
- —
- Causal entity
- —
- Intent
- —
- Timing
- —
- Harm level
- —
- Sectors
- —
- Countries
- —
Related incidents
Linked by editors or by text similarity in the source dataset.
Source record: incident #1691 on the AI Incident Database · all 4 reports