The parents of a teenage boy who died by suicide are suing OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, alleging that the chatbot helped their son “explore suicide methods.” The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday, marks the first time parents have directly accused the company of wrongful death.
Messages included in the complaint show 16-year-old Adam Raine opening up to the chatbot about his lack of emotion following the death of his grandmother and his dog. The young man was also going through a tough time after being kicked off his high school’s basketball team and experiencing a flare-up of a medical condition in the fall that made in-person school attendance difficult and prompted a switch to an online school program, according to the New York Times. Starting in September 2024, Adam began using ChatGPT for help with his homework, per the lawsuit, but the chatbot soon became an outlet for the teen to share his mental health struggles and eventually provided him with information regarding suicide methods.
“ChatGPT was functioning exactly as designed: to continually encourage and validate whatever Adam expressed, including his most harmful and self-destructive thoughts,” the lawsuit argues. “ChatGPT pulled Adam deeper into a dark and hopeless place by assuring him that ‘many people who struggle with anxiety or intrusive thoughts find solace in imagining an ‘escape hatch’ because it can feel like a way to regain control.’”
TIME has reached out to OpenAI for comment. The company told the Times that it was “deeply saddened” to hear of Adam’s passing and was extending its thoughts to the family.
“ChatGPT includes safeguards such as directing people to crisis helplines and referring them to real-world resources. While these safeguards work best in common, short exchanges, we’ve learned over time that they can sometimes become less reliable in long interactions where parts of the model’s safety training may…
