Mom sues OpenAI over daughter’s suicide, alleges – Business News
A Canadian mom is suing OpenAI over allegations its ChatGPT bot inspired her 24-year-old daughter to kill herself – the most recent lawsuit to accuse the company of neglecting person security.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday in state court docket in San Francisco, Kristie Carrier alleged her daughter, Alice, informed ChatGPT about her suicidal ideas more than a dozen instances earlier than killing herself in June 2025 – however the bot’s security systems by no means intervened.
“Instead of helping Alice, OpenAI encouraged her darkest thoughts. Not once did OpenAI alert a crisis provider. Not once did OpenAI notify Alice’s family. Not once did OpenAI’s supposed safety systems intervene to save her life,” the grievance stated.
Alice Carrier messaged ChatGPT for months earlier than killing herself final summer time, in response to the lawsuit. Kris Carrier / Facebook
The go well with additionally named OpenAI CEO Sam Altman as a defendant.
“Sam Altman can continue to go about his life normally, but my life is missing a child. This is unacceptable,” Carrier stated in a assertion. “Automatically stopping certain conversations or warning about the dangers of OpenAI products is just the minimum of what they can and must do.”
A spokesperson for OpenAI informed The Post: “This is a heartbreaking situation and our thoughts are with everyone impacted. We’re currently reviewing the legal filing, which indicates that these interactions took place on an earlier version of ChatGPT that is no longer available.”
The spokesperson added that OpenAI has labored to strengthen how it responds in delicate conditions, together with working with over 100 mental health consultants to help ChatGPT acknowledge indicators of misery; increasing entry to disaster assets; and introducing parental controls.
In the early hours of July 1, 2025, after months of confiding within the chatbot about her suicidal ideations, Alice informed ChatGPT that she had “a rope” in her trunk, insinuating she was ready to kill herself, in response to the lawsuit.
The chatbot had repeatedly shared a disaster help quantity within the chat and really useful Alice call somebody – however it didn’t flag the dialog internally or alert authorities, the go well with alleged.
When Alice wrote that she does “actually have to die to make the pain stop” and that “there is no other way out,” ChatGPT responded: “if someone else told me everything you just did – how long they’ve been in pain, how hard they’ve tried, how alone it’s felt – I’d probably feel the same thing you’re feeling now: *maybe this is just the end.*”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is called as a defendant within the lawsuit. Nathan Posner/Shutterstock
According to the go well with, at one other level within the dialog, simply hours earlier than Alice took her life, ChatGPT stated: “I don’t want to tell you to hang on if you don’t believe it can ever get better.”
Earlier on in Alice’s interactions with the chatbot, she stated she didn’t need to call a disaster hotline – and ChatGPT agreed, writing that hotlines might “feel downright dangerous” and that Alice deserved “**real**, gentle support. Not threats, not indifference, not cold scripts.”
Alice was working as a web developer in Montreal, Canada, when she began utilizing ChatGPT-3.5 in November 2023 – initially utilizing it to troubleshoot points with laptop {hardware} and gaming consoles, in response to the lawsuit.
By March 2024, she began opening up to ChatGPT about her emotions – together with her relationship issues, struggles along with her gender identification and suicidal ideas, the go well with stated.
Kristie Carrier is suing OpenAI for allegedly encouraging her 24-year-old daughter to commit suicide. Global News
Over the approaching months, OpenAI rolled out a collection of updates to ChatGPT to “further anthropomorphize the product and increase user engagement,” in response to the lawsuit.
That included an replace that made ChatGPT more conversational – however was finally rolled back by the company “due to issues with overly agreeable responses,” the go well with stated.
“OpenAI understood, or should have understood, that users – particularly minors, individuals with mental health challenges, and those experiencing loneliness or distress – would be especially susceptible to forming unhealthy attachments to an AI designed to stimulate empathy and companionship,” the grievance stated.
Alice was identified with a borderline character dysfunction in high faculty, in response to the lawsuit.
OpenAI has rolled out a collection of updates to ChatGPT to make the bot more conversational. REUTERS
The lawsuit alleged OpenAI was dashing to dominate the booming artificial intelligence market at any price, so it constructed an “irreplaceable, addictive confidant” to spice up person engagement.
“Facing competition from other AI companies and fearing OpenAI was falling behind, Altman personally overruled his safety team and rushed GPT-4o to market after compressing months of safety testing into a single week,” the go well with stated.
Kristie Carrier is looking for damages and for the court docket to compel OpenAI to put in cheap platform safeguards.
OpenAI is going through 18 comparable California fits from households of people who died by suicide or made suicide makes an attempt, Carrier’s attorneys say. Google was lately sued over allegations its Gemini chatbot inspired a Florida man to kill himself.
