Jonathan Rinderknecht was facing charges in 2025 for starting the New Year’s Day fire, which became one of the deadliest wildfires in LA history. To make their case, prosecutors drew on location data from her iPhone, security camera footage and witness testimony. But they also turned to his ChatGPT logs.
Prosecutors said Rinderknecht created images of fire from ChatGPT, asked the chatbot, “Why am I so angry all the time?”, and told it how the rich were destroying the world. He also pointed to a screen recording in which Rinderknecht asked ChatGPT whether someone could be blamed for arson if the fire was started by their cigarette.
But the jurors did not agree. The trial ended in a deadlock when the jury voted 10–2 in favor of the defense. This led the judge to declare a hung jury and a mistrial.
A juror said CBS LA She did not believe the ChatGPT logs were proof of anything, saying, “I talk to ChatGPT all the time.” She said it actually made her “angry” that they were suggesting that using chatbots indicated some kind of character flaw.
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