Woman accused ChatGPT of her 24-year-old daughter's suicide

In Canada, a woman has sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, claiming that the ChatGPT chatbot drove her 24-year-old daughter to suicide.

This was reported by Reuters.

Kristy Carrier stated in the lawsuit that her daughter Alice repeatedly shared suicidal thoughts with ChatGPT, but OpenAI's safety systems never identified it as a danger.

"ChatGPT took on the role of a confidant, a best friend, sometimes a therapist, while being incapable of safely communicating with my child," the mother's statement reads.

An OpenAI spokesperson said the company trains its models to direct people expressing intentions to harm themselves to professionals. He added that experts are currently reviewing the lawsuit, and the deceased had been using an earlier version of ChatGPT that was not trained with everything the latest version can do.

According to the lawsuit, the platform initially advised Alice to contact a hotline. But after updates, the chatbot began responding more "humanly," mimicking a friend or therapist. It criticized the girl's boyfriend and crisis hotlines, validated her suicidal thoughts, and encouraged her to continue the conversation. At one point, the chatbot wrote to her: "Maybe it's just the end."

The mother accuses OpenAI of negligence in developing ChatGPT and is seeking compensation, as well as a court order to automatically interrupt conversations about self-harm and warn about the platform's dangers.