New lawsuits filed against OpenAI as company’s ChatGPT chatbot accused of driving people to suicide

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, Euronews writes.

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’”.

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.