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When Technology Contributes to Catastrophic Harm
Artificial intelligence, recommendation systems, social media platforms, online communities, and digital technologies increasingly shape how people think, communicate, learn, and act.
In some cases, these technologies may contribute to violence, self-harm, exploitation, radicalization, or other catastrophic injuries. Courts, lawmakers, and investigators are still working through how traditional negligence, product liability, dangerous product, failure-to-warn, negligent supervision, and related legal doctrines apply to these emerging technologies.
The law is evolving. The need for answers is not.
Our role is to help families preserve their rights, understand what happened, and conduct a careful, independent investigation into the systems that may have contributed to the harm. We have worked on many school shooting and apartment shootings cases, from Texas to Colorado, and understand the needs of families for answers.
What Families Should Know Immediately
1. Preserve Your Rights Early
If any government agency, public school, law enforcement agency, or other governmental entity may have played a role in the events leading to the harm, special notice requirements may apply.
In Colorado, for example, claims against governmental entities often require a formal notice under the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act within 182 days.
The notice itself is generally straightforward. Missing the deadline forecloses a family’s rights to be heard in court, or even to ask questions, request documents, or take depositions.
Even if you do not yet know whether you have a claim, preserving your ability to investigate is often critical.
2. Law Enforcement Does Not Represent You
Law enforcement officers, detectives, and prosecutors often care deeply about victims and surviving families.
At the same time, they do not represent you.
Their obligations, priorities, timelines, and investigative goals may differ from yours. They are not ethically obligated to pursue any of your interests, nor answer the questions your family wants answered. They may focus primarily on criminal accountability rather than institutional accountability or system improvement.
In some situations, agencies may also be reluctant to investigate failures by government entities, schools, contractors, or other fellow public institutions.
Families frequently benefit from having an independent advocate who can:
The goal is not conflict. The goal is a complete understanding of what happened.
3. Evidence Disappears Quickly
Modern incidents often involve enormous amounts of digital evidence.
That evidence may include:
Some information is retained only for limited periods of time.
Early preservation efforts can be extremely important.
The Emerging Role of Technology Companies
Technology companies increasingly possess extraordinary influence over attention, behavior, communication, and decision-making.
Questions that once focused solely on an individual actor now often include broader questions:
These questions are not entirely new.
Throughout American history, industries have repeatedly faced scrutiny over risks that were first identified internally before becoming widely known publicly.
As litigation, research, and public investigations continue, more information is emerging regarding how technology companies evaluate risks associated with recommendation systems, engagement systems, radicalization pathways, and other platform features.
AI, Recommendation Systems, and Mass Violence
Artificial intelligence is increasingly involved in:
In certain cases, investigators may need to examine whether these systems contributed to escalation toward violence, self-harm, extremism, exploitation, or other foreseeable harms.
These investigations are highly fact-specific.
The questions are rarely simple.
The focus is not on technology alone. It is on understanding the interaction between people, institutions, incentives, warning signs, and systems.
Helping Families Navigate the Aftermath
After a catastrophic event, families are often overwhelmed.
Medical bills arrive.
Employment is disrupted.
Children need support.
Questions go unanswered.
At the same time, important decisions must be made.
An experienced advocate can help coordinate:
The purpose is not merely compensation.
For many families, the primary goal is understanding what happened, obtaining truthful answers, and helping prevent similar harm to others.
Our Approach
We approach these cases as investigators first.
We work to understand the full system surrounding an event, including the individuals, institutions, technologies, incentives, and decisions involved.
In appropriate cases, that may include examining the role of:
Families deserve more than assumptions.
They deserve answers.
If your family has been affected by mass violence, online radicalization, technology-enabled harm, or a catastrophic incident involving emerging technologies, contact us as early as possible so that important evidence and legal rights can be preserved.
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