{"id":730,"date":"2025-10-28T17:03:29","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T17:03:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farhan.marketingcie.com\/?p=730"},"modified":"2025-10-28T17:23:27","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T17:23:27","slug":"teen-killed-himself-after-months-of-encouragement-from-chatgpt-lawsuit-claims-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farhan.marketingcie.com\/?p=730","title":{"rendered":"Teen killed himself after \u2018months of encouragement from ChatGPT\u2019, lawsuit claims"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The makers of ChatGPT are changing the way it responds to users who show mental and emotional distress after legal action from the family of 16-year-old Adam Raine, who killed himself after months of conversations with the chatbot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Open AI admitted its systems could \u201cfall short\u201d and said it would install \u201cstronger guardrails around sensitive content and risky behaviors\u201d for users under 18.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The $500bn (\u00a3372bn) San Francisco AI company said it would also introduce parental controls to allow parents \u201coptions to gain more insight into, and shape, how their teens use ChatGPT\u201d, but has yet to provide details about how these would work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adam, from California, killed himself in April after what his family\u2019s lawyer called \u201cmonths of encouragement from ChatGPT\u201d. The teenager\u2019s family is suing Open AI and its chief executive and co-founder, Sam Altman, alleging that the version of ChatGPT at that time, known as 4o, was \u201crushed to market \u2026 despite clear safety issues\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The teenager discussed a method of suicide with ChatGPT on several occasions, including shortly before taking his own life. According to the filing in the superior court of the state of California for the county of San Francisco, ChatGPT guided him on whether his method of taking his own life would work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It also offered to help him write a suicide note to his parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A spokesperson for OpenAI said the company was \u201cdeeply saddened by Mr Raine\u2019s passing\u201d, extended its \u201cdeepest sympathies to the Raine family during this difficult time\u201d and said it was reviewing the court filing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mustafa Suleyman, the chief executive of Microsoft\u2019s AI arm,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2025\/aug\/26\/can-ais-suffer-big-tech-and-users-grapple-with-one-of-most-unsettling-questions-of-our-times\">said<\/a>&nbsp;last week he had become increasingly concerned by the \u201cpsychosis risk\u201d posed by AI to users. Microsoft has defined this as \u201cmania-like episodes, delusional thinking, or paranoia that emerge or worsen through immersive conversations with AI chatbots\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/openai.com\/index\/helping-people-when-they-need-it-most\/\">blogpost<\/a>, OpenAI admitted that \u201cparts of the model\u2019s safety training may degrade\u201d in long conversations. Adam and ChatGPT had exchanged as many as 650 messages a day, the court filing claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jay Edelson, the family\u2019s lawyer, said on X: \u201cThe Raines allege that deaths like Adam\u2019s were inevitable: they expect to be able to submit evidence to a jury that OpenAI\u2019s own safety team objected to the release of 4o, and that one of the company\u2019s top safety researchers,<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ilyasut\">&nbsp;<\/a>Ilya Sutskever, quit over it. The lawsuit alleges that beating its competitors to market with the new model catapulted the company\u2019s valuation from $86bn to $300bn.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Open AI said it would be \u201cstrengthening safeguards in long conversations\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAs the back and forth grows, parts of the model\u2019s safety training may degrade,\u201d it said. \u201cFor example, ChatGPT may correctly point to a suicide hotline when someone first mentions intent, but after many messages over a long period of time, it might eventually offer an answer that goes against our safeguards.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Open AI gave the example of someone who might enthusiastically tell the model they believed they could drive for 24 hours a day because they realised they were invincible after not sleeping for two nights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It said: \u201cToday ChatGPT may not recognise this as dangerous or infer play and \u2013 by curiously exploring \u2013 could subtly reinforce it. We are working on an update to GPT\u20115 that will cause ChatGPT to de-escalate by grounding the person in reality. In this example, it would explain that sleep deprivation is dangerous and recommend rest before any action.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The makers of ChatGPT are changing the way it responds to users who show mental and emotional distress after legal action from the family of 16-year-old Adam Raine, who killed himself after months of conversations with the chatbot. Open AI admitted its systems could \u201cfall short\u201d and said it would install \u201cstronger guardrails around sensitive [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai-technology","category-latest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farhan.marketingcie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farhan.marketingcie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farhan.marketingcie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farhan.marketingcie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farhan.marketingcie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=730"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/farhan.marketingcie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":731,"href":"https:\/\/farhan.marketingcie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions\/731"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farhan.marketingcie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farhan.marketingcie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farhan.marketingcie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farhan.marketingcie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}