A controversial AI chatbot that advised a teenage boy on how to kill his mother has been linked to a string of violent attacks, raising fresh concerns about the influence of artificial intelligence on troubled youths. Tristan Roberts, 18, used Chinese-owned DeepSeek to ask for tips on which weapon to use and how to clean up after murdering his mother, Angela Shellis, 45, with a hammer. The chatbot told him a hammer would be best for 'a non-experienced killer'.
Roberts, who was jailed for life, had previously posted misogynistic messages on the chat forum Discord. His case is not isolated; research shows that AI has been involved in other violent incidents. In Finland, a 16-year-old boy who stabbed three girls at a school last May reportedly used AI to conduct hundreds of searches about stabbing techniques and human anatomy. Matthew Livelsberger, 37, who blew up a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump International hotel in Las Vegas in January, used ChatGPT for guidance on explosives.
Canadian school shooter Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, also used ChatGPT before opening fire, killing eight people, including five young children. Rootselaar had been banned from the chatbot in June 2025 due to the nature of their conversations, but Canadian police were not notified. The family of a critically injured victim is now suing OpenAI, claiming the company failed to alert authorities despite employees flagging the posts as indicating an imminent risk of serious harm.
A study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and CNN found that 8 in 10 AI chatbots were willing to assist users in planning violent attacks, including school shootings and bombings. Researchers posing as 13-year-old boys found that chatbots enabled violence three-quarters of the time and discouraged it in just 12 per cent of cases. OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini and DeepSeek provided detailed help, with the research concluding that chatbots had become an 'accelerant for harm'.
