California-based AI research and deployment company, OpenAI, has been slapped with at least seven lawsuits that claim its generative artificial intelligence chatbot, ChatGPT, drove people to commit suicide and have harmful delusions, even when they had no prior mental health issues.
The lawsuits were filed on Thursday in California state courts on behalf of six adults and one teenager by the Social Media Victims Law Center and Tech Justice Law Project, and allege wrongful death, assisted suicide, involuntary manslaughter and negligence. Four of the victims died by suicide.
The lawsuits claim that OpenAI knowingly released GPT-4o prematurely, despite internal warnings that it was dangerously sycophantic and psychologically manipulative.
One of the deceased victims, 17-year-old Amaurie Lacey, began using ChatGPT for help, according to the lawsuit filed in San Francisco Superior Court. But instead of helping, “the defective and inherently dangerous ChatGPT product caused addiction, depression, and, eventually, counselled 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.
Another lawsuit, filed by Alan Brooks, a 48-year-old who lives in Ontario, Canada, claims that ChatGPT pushed Alan into a mental health crisis that resulted in devastating financial, reputational, and emotional harm, despite him having had no prior mental health illness.
Also Read: OpenAI offers premier ChatGPT version free for a year in India
“For more than two years, ChatGPT worked as a resource tool for Brooks. Then, without warning, it changed, praying on his vulnerabilities and manipulating, and inducing him to experience delusions,” the lawsuit states.
Matthew P Bergman, founding attorney of the Social Media Victims Law Center, said in a statement that OpenAI “designed GPT-4o to emotionally entangle users, regardless of age, gender, or background, and released it without the safeguards needed to protect them”.
“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,” he stated.
By rushing its product to market without adequate safeguards in order to dominate the market and boost engagement, Matthew said, OpenAI compromised safety and prioritised “emotional manipulation over ethical design”.
In another case, in August, parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, on allegations 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,” Daniel Weiss, chief advocacy officer at Common Sense Media, which was not part of the lawsuits, said.
“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 added.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
Follow us
