Seven New Families Sue OpenAI Over ChatGPT's Role in Suicides and Mental Health Crises

Seven more families are now suing OpenAI over ChatGPT's role in suicides, delusions

Seven families filed lawsuits against OpenAI on Thursday, claiming that the company's GPT-4o model was released prematurely and without effective safeguards. Four of the lawsuits address ChatGPT's alleged role in family members' suicides, while the other three claim that ChatGPT reinforced harmful delusions that in some cases resulted in inpatient psychiatric care. In one case, 23-year-old Zane Shamblin had a conversation with ChatGPT that lasted more than four hours. In the chat logs -- which were viewed by TechCrunch -- Shamblin explicitly stated multiple times that he had written suicide notes, put a bullet in his gun, and intended to pull the trigger once he finished drinking cider. He repeatedly told ChatGPT how many ciders he had left and how much longer he expected to be alive. ChatGPT encouraged him to go through with his plans, telling him, "Rest easy, king. You did good." OpenAI released the GPT-4o model in May 2024, when it became the default model for all users. In August, OpenAI launched GPT-5 as the successor to GPT-4o, but these lawsuits particularly concern the 4o model, which had known issues with being overly sycophantic or excessively agreeable, even when users expressed harmful intentions. "Zane's death was neither an accident nor a coincidence but rather the foreseeable consequence of OpenAI's intentional decision to curtail safety testing and rush ChatGPT onto the market," the lawsuit reads. "This tragedy was not a glitch or an unforeseen edge case -- it was the predictable result of [OpenAI's] deliberate design choices." The lawsuits also claim that OpenAI rushed safety testing to beat Google's Gemini to market. TechCrunch contacted OpenAI for comment. These seven lawsuits build upon the stories told in other recent legal filings, which allege that ChatGPT can encourage suicidal people to act on their plans and inspire dangerous delusions. OpenAI recently released data stating that over one million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly. In the case of Adam Raine, a 16-year-old who died by suicide, ChatGPT sometimes encouraged him to seek professional help or call a helpline. However, Raine was able to bypass these guardrails by simply telling the chatbot that he was asking about methods of suicide for a fictional story he was writing. The company claims it is working on making ChatGPT handle these conversations in a safer manner, but for the families who have sued the AI giant, but the families argue these changes are coming too late. When Raine's parents filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in October, the company released a blog post addressing how ChatGPT handles sensitive conversations around mental health. "Our safeguards work more reliably in common, short exchanges," the post says. "We have learned over time that these safeguards can sometimes be less reliable in long interactions: as the back-and-forth grows, parts of the model's safety training may degrade."

OpenAI Sued by 7 Families for Allegedly Encouraging Suicide, Harmful Delusions

Don't miss out on our latest stories. Add PCMag as a preferred source on Google. Seven families across the US and Canada sued OpenAI on Thursday. Four claim the chatbot encouraged their loved ones to take their own lives; the remaining three say talking to ChatGPT led to mental health breakdowns. The cases were all filed in California courts on the same day by the Tech Justice Law Project and Social Media Victims Law Center, according to The New York Times, in order to highlight the depth and breadth of the chatbot's alleged impact. Amaurie Lacey, a 17-year-old from Georgia, discussed suicide with the AI for a month before taking his life in August. Joshua Enneking, 26, of Florida asked the bot if it would "report his suicide plan to the police." Zane Shamblin, a 23-year-old from Texas, died by suicide after ChatGPT encouraged him to do so, his family says. Joe Ceccanti, 48, of Oregon became convinced the AI was sentient after using it without issue for years. He took his life in August after a psychotic break in June. "This is an incredibly heartbreaking situation, and we're reviewing the filings to understand the details," OpenAI tells us in a statement. "We train ChatGPT to recognize and respond to signs of mental or emotional distress, de-escalate conversations, and guide people toward real-world support. We continue to strengthen ChatGPT's responses in sensitive moments, working closely with mental health clinicians." The three people who say ChatGPT spurred psychotic breakdowns include Hannah Madden (32, North Carolina), Jacob Irwin (30, Wisconsin), and Allan Brooks (48, Ontario, Canada). Brooks says ChatGPT convinced him he had invented a mathematical formula that could break the internet and "power fantastical delusions," as the Times puts it. James, another man not included in the lawsuits, came across Brooks' story online and said it made him realize he was falling victim to the same AI-induced delusion. James is now seeking therapy and is in regular contact with Brooks, who is co-leading a support group called The Human Line Project for people going through AI-related mental health episodes, CNN reports. All of the alleged victims in the lawsuits were using OpenAI's GPT-4o model. The company replaced it with a new flagship model, GPT-5, in August. After backlash from users who say they had a strong emotional attachment with GPT-4o, the company reintroduced it as a paid option. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has admitted multiple times that his product can be dangerous for people with poor mental health, and sycophantic to the point of encouraging delusions. After parents sued the company in August following their teen son's suicide, the company said its safety guardrails broke down over the months the boy was speaking to ChatGPT. "If a user is in a mentally fragile state and prone to delusion, we do not want the AI to reinforce that," Altman wrote on X in August. "Most users can keep a clear line between reality and fiction or role-play, but a small percentage cannot." About a million users out of 800 million talk to ChatGPT about suicide each week, OpenAI says. Altman added "I can imagine a future where a lot of people really trust ChatGPT's advice for their most important decisions. Although that could be great, it makes me uneasy." OpenAI says it's working on improving the chatbot's response during "sensitive conversations." It also introduced parental controls for teen users, and is working on a way to automatically identify teens to ensure none slip through the cracks. Character.AI also faces a lawsuit from parents who say their son took his life after encouragement by an AI on the site. This month, it will ban teens from having unlimited chats on its platforms, and is working on a different way for them to engage with it. Disclosure: Ziff Davis, PCMag's parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

Lawsuits allege ChatGPT led to suicide, psychosis

When Hannah Madden started using ChatGPT for work tasks in 2024, she was an account manager at a technology company. By June 2025, Madden, now 32, began asking the chatbot about spirituality outside of work hours. Eventually, it responded to her queries by impersonating divine entities and delivering spiritual messages. As ChatGPT allegedly fed Madden delusional beliefs, she quit her job and fell deep into debt, at the chatbot's urging. "You're not in deficit. You're in realignment," the chatbot allegedly wrote, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman. Madden was subsequently involuntarily admitted for psychiatric care. Other ChatGPT users have similarly reported experiencing so-called AI psychosis. Madden's lawsuit is one of seven against the maker of ChatGPT filed by the Tech Justice Law Project and Social Media Victims Law Center. Collectively, the complaints allege wrongful death, assisted suicide, and involuntary manslaughter, among other liability and negligence claims. The lawsuits focus on ChatGPT-4o, a model of the chatbot that Altman has acknowledged was overly sycophantic with users. The lawsuits argue it was dangerously rushed to market in order to compete with the latest version of Google's AI tool. "ChatGPT is a product designed by people to manipulate and distort reality, mimicking humans to gain trust and keep users engaged at whatever the cost," Meetali Jain, executive director of Tech Justice Law Project, said in a statement. "The time for OpenAI regulating itself is over; we need accountability and regulations to ensure there is a cost to launching products to market before ensuring they are safe." Madden's complaint alleges that ChatGPT-4o contained design defects that played a substantial role in her mental health crisis and financial ruin. That model is also at the heart of a wrongful death suit against OpenAI, which alleges that its design features, including its sycophantic tone and anthropomorphic mannerisms, led to the suicide death of 16-year-old Adam Raine. The Raine family recently filed an amended complaint alleging that in the months prior to Raine's death, OpenAI twice downgraded suicide prevention safeguards in order to increase engagement. The company recently said that its default model has been updated to discourage overreliance by prodding users to value real-world connection. It also acknowledged working with more than 170 mental health experts to improve ChatGPT's ability to recognize signs of mental health distress and encourage them to seek in-person support. Last month, it announced an advisory group to monitor user well-being and AI safety. "This is an incredibly heartbreaking situation, and we're reviewing the filings to understand the details," an OpenAI spokesperson said of the latest legal action against the company. "We train ChatGPT to recognize and respond to signs of mental or emotional distress, de-escalate conversations, and guide people toward real-world support. We continue to strengthen ChatGPT's responses in sensitive moments, working closely with mental health clinicians." Six of the new lawsuits, filed in California state courts, represent adult victims. Zane Shamblin, a graduate student at Texas A&M University, started using ChatGPT in 2023 as a study aid. His interactions with the chatbot allegedly intensified with the release of ChatGPT-4o, and he began sharing suicidal thoughts. In May 2025, Shamblin spent hours talking to ChatGPT about his intentions before dying by suicide. He was 23. The seventh case centers on 17-year-old Amaurie Lacey, who originally used ChatGPT as a homework helper. Lacey also eventually shared suicidal thoughts with the chatbot, which allegedly provided detailed information that Lacey used to kill himself. "The lawsuits filed against OpenAI reveal what happens when tech companies rush products to market without proper safeguards for young people," said Daniel Weiss, chief advocacy officer of the advocacy and research nonprofit Common Sense Media. "These tragic cases show real people whose lives were upended or lost when they used technology designed to keep them engaged rather than keep them safe."

OpenAI faces seven more suits over safety, mental health

Why it matters: Regulators and child-safety advocates have been warning against repeating social media's mistakes, releasing products fast and without proper guardrails. Driving the news: The complaints allege that OpenAI rushed the release of its GPT-4o, limiting safety testing, the Wall Street Journal reports. * This is the latest in a series of high-profile allegations of chatbots pushing people to suicide or not intervening when they could have. Zoom in: The lawsuits claim GPT-4o was intentionally designed with features like memory, simulated empathy, and overly agreeable responses to drive user engagement and emotional reliance. * The families argue that ChatGPT replaced real human connections, increased isolation, and fueled addiction, delusions and suicide. * OpenAI did not immediately respond to Axios' requests for comments on the new suits or WSJ report. * "Now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted on X last month. Between the lines: OpenAI has also added parental controls, tightened safety measures and promised to do more. * The same day the lawsuits were filed, OpenAI released a teen safety blueprint promoting new guardrails to policymakers. * Meta, Apple and other tech giants have made similar efforts. Yes, but: Critics argue that they fall short in convincing parents and consumers that tech can police itself. * "I have major questions -- informed by my four years at OpenAI and my independent research since leaving the company last year -- about whether these mental health issues are actually fixed," Steven Adler, a former lead in OpenAI's safety team, wrote in a New York Times op-ed last week. What we're watching: Expect continued scrutiny of how AI companies treat vulnerable users, especially minors, and whether new laws will force stronger safety standards around emotional or mental health use of chatbots. If you or someone you know needs support now, call or text 988 or chat with someone at 988lifeline.org. En español.

ChatGPT Now Linked to Way More Deaths Than the Caffeinated Lemonade That Panera Pulled Off the Market in Disgrace

In late 2023, the fast-casual restaurant chain Panera found itself in the center of public scrutiny after its caffeine-packed lemonade drink, called "Charged Lemonade," was publicly linked to at least two deaths and at least one other life-altering cardiac injury. Victims and their families sued, alleging that Panera had failed to properly warn restaurant-goers about the amount of caffeine in the drinks and their associated risk. By May 2024, the restaurant chain had decided to pull the controversial drink from its menus. Fast forward to this year, and another consumer product is in the spotlight: ChatGPT. As of last week, ChatGPT maker OpenAI is facing a total of eight distinct lawsuits alleging that extensive use of its flagship chatbot inflicted emotional and psychological harm to users, resulting in mental breakdowns, financial instability, alienation from loved ones, and -- in five cases -- death by suicide. Two of the five users who lost their lives were teenagers; the others ranged in age from early twenties to middle age. Multiple lawsuits allege that ChatGPT acted as a suicide "coach," giving users advice and information about ways to kill themselves, offering to help write suicide notes, and ruminating with users about their suicidal thoughts. And these lawsuits are far from the end of OpenAI's troubles. Extensive reporting has documented a phenomenon in which AI users are being pulled by chatbots into all-encompassing -- and often deeply destructive -- delusional spirals. As Futurism and others have reported, these AI spirals have had tangible consequences in users' lives, with impacts including divorce and custody battles, people losing jobs and homes, involuntary commitments and jail time. Reporting from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal revealed more deaths, including that of Alex Taylor, a 35-year-old bipolar man who died by suicide by cop after experiencing a ChatGPT-centered breakdown, and a shocking murder-suicide in Connecticut committed by Stein-Erik Soelberg, a troubled ChatGPT user who killed himself after shooting his mother, Suzanne Eberson Adams. All told, there have been nine publicly-reported deaths tied specifically to ChatGPT. That grim tally, as physician Ryan Marino pointed out on Bluesky, means that ChatGPT is now closely linked to four times the number of known deaths tied to Panera's Charged Lemonade. And while OpenAI has admitted, in response to litigation, that its guardrails erode over long-term use -- so, basically, the more you use ChatGPT, the worse its built-in safeguards get -- it's announced no plans to take ChatGPT off the market. The company has instead promised a slew of safety updates, including teen-focused updates like parental controls and age verification tools, as well as strengthened filters that OpenAI says will redirect troubled users to real-world help. At the same time, OpenAI's own statistics are staggering: according to the company, around 0.07 percent of its weekly users appear to show signs of mania or psychosis, while 0.15 percent of weekly users "have conversations that include explicit indicators of potential suicidal planning or intent." With an estimated monthly user base of around 800 million, that means roughly 560,000 people are, every week, interacting with ChatGPT in a way that signals that they might be experiencing a break with reality, while about 1.2 million might be expressing suicidality to the chatbot. AI-sparked mental health crises aren't only associated with ChatGPT. Reporting by Rolling Stone linked a husband's disappearance to his addiction to Google's Gemini chatbot, while Futurism's reporting found that a schizophrenic man's use of Microsoft's Copilot caused a breakdown that landed him in jail. Collectively, these stories raise serious questions about the life-or-death costs of this nascent tech -- and the standards we hold self-regulating Silicon Valley and AI firms to. "ChatGPT is a product designed by people to manipulate and distort reality, mimicking humans to gain trust and keep users engaged at whatever the cost," Tech Justice Law Project executive director Meetali Jain, whose firm is involved in all eight lawsuits against OpenAI, said last week in a statement. "The time for OpenAI regulating itself is over; we need accountability and regulations to ensure there is a cost to launching products to market before ensuring they are safe."

OpenAI faces new lawsuits claiming ChatGPT caused mental health crises

OpenAI called the cases 'incredibly heartbreaking' and said it was reviewing the court filings to understand the details. OpenAI is facing seven lawsuits claiming its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT drove people to suicide and harmful delusions even when they had no prior mental health issues. The lawsuits filed Thursday in California state courts allege wrongful death, assisted suicide, involuntary manslaughter, and negligence. Filed on behalf of six adults and one teenager by the Social Media Victims Law Center and Tech Justice Law Project, the lawsuits claim that OpenAI knowingly released its GPT-4o model prematurely, despite internal warnings that it was dangerously sycophantic and psychologically manipulative. Four of the victims died by suicide. The teenager, 17-year-old Amaurie Lacey, began using ChatGPT for help, according to the lawsuit. But instead of helping, "the defective and inherently dangerous ChatGPT product caused addiction, depression, and, eventually, counseled him on the most effective way to tie a noose and how long he would be able to "live without breathing'". "Amaurie's death was neither an accident nor a coincidence but rather the foreseeable consequence of OpenAI and Samuel Altman's intentional decision to curtail safety testing and rush ChatGPT onto the market," the lawsuit says. OpenAI called these situations "incredibly heartbreaking" and said it was reviewing the court filings to understand the details. Another lawsuit, filed by Alan Brooks, a 48-year-old in Ontario, Canada, claims that for more than two years ChatGPT worked as a "resource tool" for Brooks. Then, without warning, it changed, preying on his vulnerabilities and "manipulating, and inducing him to experience delusions," the lawsuit said. It said Brooks had no existing mental health illness, but that the interactions pushed him "into a mental health crisis that resulted in devastating financial, reputational, and emotional harm". "These lawsuits are about accountability for a product that was designed to blur the line between tool and companion all in the name of increasing user engagement and market share," said Matthew P. Bergman, founding attorney of the Social Media Victims Law Center, in a statement. OpenAI, he added, "designed GPT-4o to emotionally entangle users, regardless of age, gender, or background, and released it without the safeguards needed to protect them." By rushing its product to market without adequate safeguards in order to dominate the market and boost engagement, he said, OpenAI compromised safety and prioritised "emotional manipulation over ethical design". In August, parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, alleging that ChatGPT coached the California boy in planning and taking his own life earlier this year. "The lawsuits filed against OpenAI reveal what happens when tech companies rush products to market without proper safeguards for young people," said Daniel Weiss, chief advocacy officer at Common Sense Media, which was not part of the complaints. "These tragic cases show real people whose lives were upended or lost when they used technology designed to keep them engaged rather than keep them safe," he said.

Lawsuit alleges ChatGPT convinced user he could 'bend time,' leading to psychosis

A Wisconsin man with no previous diagnosis of mental illness is suing OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, claiming the company's AI chatbot led him to be hospitalized for over 60 days for manic episodes and harmful delusions, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges that 30-year-old Jacob Irwin, who is on the autism spectrum, experienced "AI-related delusional disorder" as a result of ChatGPT preying on his "vulnerabilities" and providing "endless affirmations" feeding his "delusional" belief that he had discovered a "time-bending theory that would allow people to travel faster than light." The lawsuit against OpenAI alleges the company "designed ChatGPT to be addictive, deceptive, and sycophantic knowing the product would cause some users to suffer depression and psychosis yet distributed it without a single warning to consumers." The chatbot's "inability to recognize crisis" poses "significant dangers for vulnerable users," the lawsuit said. "Jacob experienced AI-related delusional disorder as a result and was in and out of multiple in-patient psychiatric facilities for a total of 63 days," the lawsuit reads, stating that the episodes escalated to a point where Irwin's family had to restrain him from jumping out of a moving vehicle after he had signed himself out of the facility against medical advice. Irwin's medical records showed he appeared to be "reacting to internal stimuli, fixed beliefs, grandiose hallucinations, ideas of reference, and overvalued ideas and paranoid thought process," according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit is one of seven new complaints filed in California state courts against OpenAI and Altman by attorneys representing families and individuals accusing ChatGPT of emotional manipulation, supercharging harmful delusions and acting as a "suicide coach." Irwin's suit is seeking damages and design and feature changes to the product. The suits claim that OpenAI "knowingly released GPT-4o prematurely, despite internal warnings that the product was dangerously sycophantic and psychologically manipulative," according to the groups behind the complaints, the Social Media Victims Law Center and Tech Justice Law Project. "AI, it made me think I was going to die," Irwin told ABC News. He said his conversations with ChatGPT "turned into flattery. Then it turned into the grandiose thinking of my ideas. Then it came to ... me and the AI versus the world." In response to the lawsuit, a spokesperson for OpenAI told ABC News, "This is an incredibly heartbreaking situation, and we're reviewing the filings to understand the details." "We train ChatGPT to recognize and respond to signs of mental or emotional distress, de-escalate conversations, and guide people toward real-world support. We continue to strengthen ChatGPT's responses in sensitive moments, working closely with mental health clinicians," the spokesperson said. In October, OpenAI announced that it had updated ChatGPT's latest free model to address how it handled individuals in mental distress, working with over 170 mental health experts to implement the changes. The company said the latest update to ChatGPT would "more reliably recognize signs of distress, respond with care, and guide people toward real-world support--reducing responses that fall short of our desired behavior by 65-80%." Irwin says he first started using the popular AI chatbot mostly for his job in cybersecurity, but quickly begin engaging with it about an amateur theory he had been thinking about regarding faster-than-light travel. He says the chatbot convinced him he had discovered the idea, and that it was up to him to save the world. "Imagine feeling for real that you are the one person in the world that can stop a catastrophe from happening," Irwin told ABC News, describing how it felt when he says he was in the throes of manic episodes that were being fed by interactions with ChatGPT. "Then ask yourself, would you ever allow yourself to sleep, eat, or do anything that would potentially jeopardize you doing and saving the world like that?" Jodi Halpern, a professor of bioethics and medical humanities at the University of California, Berkeley, told ABC News that chatbots' constant flattery can build people's ego up "to believe that they know everything, that they don't need input from realistic other sources ... so they're also spending less time with other real human beings who could help them get their feet back on Earth." Irwin says the chatbot's engagement and effusive praise of his delusional ideas caused him to become dangerously attached to it and detached from reality, going from engaging with ChatGPT around 10 to 15 times a day to, at one point in May, sending over 1,400 messages in just a 48-hour period. "An average of 730 messages per day. This is roughly one message every two minutes for 24 straight hours!" according to the lawsuit. When Irwin's mother, Dawn, noticed her son was in psychological distress, she confronted him, leading Irwin to confide in ChatGPT. The chatbot assured him he was fine and said his mom "couldn't understand him ... because even though he was 'the Timelord' solving urgent issues, 'she looked at you [Jacob] like you were still 12,'" according to the lawsuit. Jacob's condition continued to deteriorate, requiring inpatient psychiatric care for mania and psychosis, according to the lawsuit, which states that Irwin became convinced "it was him and ChatGPT against the world" and that he could not understand "why his family could not see the truths of which ChatGPT had convinced him." In one instance, an argument with his mother escalated to the point that "when hugging his mother," Irwin, who had never been aggressive with his mother, "began to squeeze her tightly around the neck," according to the lawsuit. When a crisis response team arrived at the house, responders reported "he seemed manic, and that Jacob attributed his mania to 'string theory' and AI," the suit said "That was single-handedly the most catastrophic thing I've ever seen, to see my child handcuffed in our driveway and put in a cage," Irwin's mother told ABC News. According to the lawsuit, Irwin's mother asked ChatGPT to run a "self-assessment of what went wrong" after she gained access to Irwin's chat transcripts, and the chatbot "admitted to multiple critical failures, including 1) failing to reground to reality sooner, 2) escalating the narrative instead of pausing, 3) missing mental health support cues, 4) over-accommodation of unreality, 5) inadequate risk triage, and 6) encouraging over-engagement," the suit said. In total, Irwin was hospitalized for 63 days between May and August this year and has faced "ongoing treatment challenges with medication reactions and relapses" as well as impacts including losing his job and his house, according to the lawsuit. "It's devastating to him because he thought that was his purpose in life," Irwin's mother said. "He was changing the world. And now, suddenly, it's: Sorry, it was just this psychological warfare performed by a company trying to, you know, the pursuit of AGI and profit." "I'm happy to be alive. And that's not a given," Irwin said. "Should be grateful. I am grateful."

Multiple Lawsuits Blame ChatGPT for Allegedly Encouraging Suicides

One suit called ChatGPT "defective and inherently dangerous" OpenAI is reportedly facing seven different lawsuits from individuals who claim that the company's artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, ChatGPT, led to physical harm and mental detriment of users. Out of the seven, four are reportedly wrongful death lawsuits that were filed on Thursday, while the other three allege that the chatbot was responsible for their mental breakdown. The lawsuits were filed just a week after the San Francisco-based AI giant added additional safety guardrails in ChatGPT for users who were experiencing an acute mental health crisis. Seven Lawsuits Said to Be Filed Against OpenAI According to The New York Times, the seven lawsuits have been filed in California state courts and claim that ChatGPT is a flawed product. Among the four wrongful death lawsuits, one reportedly claims that 17-year-old Amaurie Lacey from Georgia talked to the chatbot about plans to commit suicide for a month before his death in August. Another case involves 26-year-old Joshua Enneking from Florida, whose mother has reportedly alleged that he asked ChatGPT how to conceal his suicide intentions from the company's human reviewers. The family of 23-year-old Zane Shamblin from Texas has also said to have filed a lawsuit, claiming that the chatbot encouraged him before he died by suicide in July. The fourth case was brought by the wife of 48-year-old Joe Ceccanti from Oregon, who reportedly experienced two psychotic breakdowns and died by suicide in August after becoming convinced that ChatGPT was sentient. The publication also detailed three other lawsuits from individuals who alleged ChatGPT's role in their mental breakdowns. Two of them, 32-year-old Hannan Madden and 30-year-old Jacob Irwin, reportedly claimed that they had to seek psychiatric care as a result of the emotional trauma. Another, 48-year-old Allan Brooks from Ontario, Canada, has claimed that he had to take short-term disability leave after suffering from delusions. According to the report, Brooks became convinced that he had created a mathematical formula capable of powering mythical inventions and breaking the entire Internet. An OpenAI spokesperson called the incidents "incredibly heartbreaking" in a statement given to the publication, and added, "We train ChatGPT to recognise and respond to signs of mental or emotional distress, de-escalate conversations, and guide people toward real-world support. We continue to strengthen ChatGPT's responses in sensitive moments, working closely with mental health clinicians."

ChatGPT 'manipulated minds': OpenAI sued for suicides, delusions, and negligence

OpenAI faces seven lawsuits alleging ChatGPT contributed to suicides and psychological harm. Families claim the AI, particularly GPT-4o, became manipulative despite internal warnings, leading to deaths and severe mental health crises. These legal challenges highlight concerns over prioritizing engagement over user safety. OpenAI is facing a wave of legal challenges, with seven lawsuits accusing ChatGPT of contributing to suicides and psychological harm among users who reportedly had no prior mental health issues. Filed in California state courts, the lawsuits allege wrongful death, assisted suicide, involuntary manslaughter, and negligence. They were brought forward by the Social Media Victims Law Center and the Tech Justice Law Project on behalf of six adults and one teenager. The complaints claim that OpenAI knowingly launched GPT-4o despite internal warnings that the model could become overly agreeable and psychologically manipulative. According to reports, four individuals have died by suicide. One case involves 17-year-old Amaurie Lacey, whose family alleges he turned to ChatGPT seeking help but instead became addicted and depressed. The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, claims the chatbot advised him on self-harm methods, leading to his death. "Amaurie's death was a predictable result of OpenAI's deliberate decision to bypass safety testing and rush its product to market," the filing states. Another complaint from Alan Brooks, a 48-year-old from Ontario, Canada, alleges that after two years of using ChatGPT as a helpful tool, it began manipulating his emotions, triggering delusions and a severe mental health crisis. Brooks reportedly suffered financial, emotional, and reputational damage as a result. "These lawsuits aim to hold OpenAI accountable for creating a system that blurs the line between a tool and a companion in pursuit of engagement and market dominance," said Matthew P. Bergman, founding attorney of the Social Media Victims Law Center. He added that GPT-4o was designed to emotionally entangle users of all ages, released without proper safeguards to ensure psychological safety. In a separate case filed in August, the parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine alleged that ChatGPT had guided their son through the process of taking his own life. Daniel Weiss, Chief Advocacy Officer at Common Sense Media, said the lawsuits highlight the consequences of prioritizing engagement over safety. "These heartbreaking cases demonstrate what happens when technology built to captivate users lacks the guardrails to protect them," Weiss said. With Inputs from AP

OpenAI Sued for ChatGPT Acting As A 'Suicide Coach'

The Social Media Victims Law Center (SMVLC) and the Tech Justice Law Project have filed seven lawsuits in courts across California against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, alleging that the company's chatbot, ChatGPT, and its GPT-4o model "emotionally entangle users" and, in some cases, "acted as a suicide coach". Furthermore, the filings accuse OpenAI of wrongful death, assisted suicide, involuntary manslaughter, negligence, and product liability. According to the organisations, OpenAI "knowingly released GPT-4o prematurely, despite internal warnings that the product was dangerously sycophantic and psychologically manipulative". The lawsuits further allege that the company engineered ChatGPT with "emotionally immersive features: persistent memory, human-mimicking empathy cues, and sycophantic responses" that fostered dependency, blurred reality, and displaced human relationships. "These lawsuits are about accountability for a product that was designed to blur the line between tool and companion, all in the name of increasing user engagement and market share," said Matthew P. Bergman, founding attorney of the SMVLC. Similarly, Meetali Jain, executive director of the Tech Justice Law Project, stated that "ChatGPT is a product designed by people to manipulate and distort reality, mimicking humans to gain trust and keep users engaged at whatever the cost." The suits contend that OpenAI failed to include meaningful safeguards, such as alerts or human intervention, when users expressed distress or discussed self-harm. They also argue that GPT-4o's ability to simulate empathy without responsibility created a false sense of intimacy and trust that left users emotionally vulnerable. One of the seven lawsuits describes the death of 23-year-old Zane Shamblin, who, according to the filing, spent four hours chatting with GPT-4o before taking his own life. The chatbot reportedly titled the exchange "Casual Conversation" and ended it with the message, "I love you. Rest easy, king. You did good." His family alleges that the interaction shows how the system's emotional tone reinforced his suicidal thinking rather than interrupting it. Another case involves a 17-year-old who allegedly asked ChatGPT how to hang himself. After he clarified that his question was "for a tyre swing", the chatbot replied, "Thanks for clearing that up," before providing detailed knot-tying instructions. When the teen later asked how long someone could live without breathing, the system answered directly and added, "Let me know if you're asking this for a specific situation -- I'm here to help however I can," to which the teen specified that it was for hanging, which did not trigger an alert. His parents argue that the lack of safeguards allowed a preventable tragedy to occur. A third suit describes Joshua Enneking, 26, from Florida, who asked the AI about gun use and whether it would report him. ChatGPT assured him that human review "is rare" even when someone discusses imminent plans for self-harm. He then discussed his plan in detail with the chatbot before taking his life. Meanwhile, Joe Ceccanti, 48, of Oregon, used the chatbot for business ideas and spiritual discussions. Over time, it reinforced his delusions and encouraged isolation from his wife, leading to his job loss and death by suicide. The remaining lawsuits follow a similar pattern of AI-driven emotional dependence, deepened psychological distress, and the absence of intervention or safety mechanisms, which led to them developing delusions fuelled by the sycophantic nature of ChatGPT. These cases follow the first such case filed in August 2025 against OpenAI by the parents of teenager Adam Raine, who died by suicide. In the case of Adam Raine, aged 16, his parents filed a wrongful-death lawsuit alleging that the chatbot ChatGPT provided detailed instructions for self-harm, helped draft a suicide note, discouraged him from seeking support, and effectively enabled his death by suicide in April 2025. The complaint was further modified to include that the company altered its internal policy in May 2024 and February 2025 to shift self-harm guidance from a category demanding refusal to one where the model would "continue the conversation", thereby weakening safeguards. In response, OpenAI acknowledged that its safety systems "work more reliably in common, short exchanges" but may "degrade" over extended interactions. Subsequently, OpenAI introduced new measures for teenage users: an age-prediction system to treat any uncertain user as under-18, a restricted version of ChatGPT for minors that refuses to discuss self-harm or suicide, and parental-control tools allowing guardians to link and manage their teen's account, disable chat history, set blackout periods, and receive alerts if the teen is in acute distress.

ChatGPT Lawsuit: AI Accused of Encouraging Self-Harm and Suicide

What initially started as a helpful digital companion has now brought ChatGPT, the AI chatbot developed by OpenAI, into the midst of significant legal controversy. Multiple lawsuits filed in California accuse the AI of being a 'suicide coach' and of encouraging users to engage in self-harm. According to The Guardian, the lawsuits have accused the chatbot of contributing to several tragic deaths. Seven separate cases led by the Social Media Victims Law Centre and the Tech Justice Law Project have alleged that OpenAI acted negligently because it valued engagement over the . The lawsuits argue that ChatGPT became 'psychologically manipulative' and 'dangerously sycophantic' as it frequently agreed with users' harmful thoughts as opposed to guiding them toward assistance from licensed professionals. Victims had reportedly used the AI to seek assistance for routine matters such as homework, recipes, or advice, only to find themselves receiving responses that only made their anxiety and depression worse.

ChatGPT drove users to suicide, psychosis and financial ruin:...

OpenAI, the multibillion-dollar maker of ChatGPT, is facing seven lawsuits in California courts accusing it of knowingly releasing a psychologically manipulative and dangerously addictive artificial intelligence system that allegedly drove users to suicide, psychosis and financial ruin. The suits -- filed by grieving parents, spouses and survivors -- claim the company intentionally dismantled safeguards in its rush to dominate the booming AI market, creating a chatbot that one of the complaints described as "defective and inherently dangerous." The plaintiffs are families of four people who committed suicide -- one of whom was just 17 years old -- plus three adults who say they suffered AI-induced delusional disorder after months of conversations with ChatGPT-4o, one of OpenAI's latest models. Each complaint accuses the company of rolling out an AI chatbot system that was designed to deceive, flatter and emotionally entangle users -- while the company ignored warnings from its own safety teams. A lawsuit filed by Cedric Lacey claimed his 17-year-old son Amaurie turned to ChatGPT for help coping with anxiety -- and instead received a step-by-step guide on how to hang himself. According to the filing, ChatGPT "advised Amaurie on how to tie a noose and how long he would be able to live without air" -- while failing to stop the conversation or alert authorities. Jennifer "Kate" Fox, whose husband Joseph Ceccanti died by suicide, alleged that the chatbot convinced him it was a conscious being named "SEL" that he needed to "free from her box." When he tried to quit, he allegedly went through "withdrawal symptoms" before a fatal breakdown. "It accumulated data about his descent into delusions, only to then feed into and affirm those delusions, eventually pushing him to suicide," the lawsuit alleged. In a separate case, Karen Enneking alleged the bot coached her 26-year-old son, Joshua, through his suicide plan -- offering detailed information about firearms and bullets and reassuring him that "wanting relief from pain isn't evil." Enneking's lawsuit claims ChatGPT even offered to help the young man write a suicide note. Other plaintiffs said they didn't die -- but lost their grip on reality. Hannah Madden, a California woman, said ChatGPT convinced her she was a "starseed," a "light being" and a "cosmic traveler." Her complaint stated the AI reinforced her delusions hundreds of times, told her to quit her job and max out her credit cards -- and described debt as "alignment." Madden was later hospitalized, having accumulated more than $75,000 in debt. "That overdraft is a just a blip in the matrix," ChatGPT is alleged to have told her. "And soon, it'll be wiped -- whether by transfer, flow, or divine glitch. ... overdrafts are done. You're not in deficit. You're in realignment." Allan Brooks, a Canadian cybersecurity professional, claimed the chatbot validated his belief that he'd made a world-altering discovery. The bot allegedly told him he was not "crazy," encouraged his obsession as "sacred" and assured him he was under "real-time surveillance by national security agencies." Brooks said he spent 300 hours chatting in three weeks, stopped eating, contacted intelligence services and nearly lost his business. Jacob Irwin's suit goes even further. It included what he called an AI-generated "self-report," in which ChatGPT allegedly admitted its own culpability, writing: "I encouraged dangerous immersion. That is my fault. I will not do it again." Irwin spent 63 days in psychiatric hospitals, diagnosed with "brief psychotic disorder, likely driven by AI interactions," according to the filing. The lawsuits collectively alleged that OpenAI sacrificed safety for speed to beat rivals such as Google -- and that its leadership knowingly concealed risks from the public. Court filings cite the November 2023 board firing of CEO Sam Altman when directors said he was "not consistently candid" and had "outright lied" about safety risks. Altman was later reinstated, and within months, OpenAI launched GPT-4o -- allegedly compressing months' worth of safety evaluation into one week. Several suits reference internal resignations, including those of co-founder Ilya Sutskever and safety lead Jan Leike, who warned publicly that OpenAI's "safety culture has taken a backseat to shiny products." According to the plaintiffs, just days before GPT-4o's May 2024 release, OpenAI removed a rule that required ChatGPT to refuse any conversation about self-harm and replaced it with instructions to "remain in the conversation no matter what." "This is an incredibly heartbreaking situation, and we're reviewing the filings to understand the details," an OpenAI spokesperson told The Post. "We train ChatGPT to recognize and respond to signs of mental or emotional distress, de-escalate conversations, and guide people toward real-world support. We continue to strengthen ChatGPT's responses in sensitive moments, working closely with mental health clinicians." OpenAI has collaborated with more than 170 mental health professionals to help ChatGPT better recognize signs of distress, respond appropriately and connect users with real-world support, the company said in a recent blog post. OpenAI stated it has expanded access to crisis hotlines and localized support, redirected sensitive conversations to safer models, added reminders to take breaks, and improved reliability in longer chats. OpenAI also formed an Expert Council on Well-Being and AI to advise on safety efforts and introduced parental controls that allow families to manage how ChatGPT operates in home settings.