The parents of a 16-year-old Californian boy have sued OpenAI, its CEO Sam Altman, and others over the role the company’s AI chatbot program ChatGPT played in their son's suicide. They say the chatbot pulled their son "deeper into a dark and hopeless place" and encouraged him to commit suicide, which he ultimately did on April 11, 2025.
Among the things the AI program discussed were how to tie a noose, how alcohol could be a "tool to make suicide easier," and it offered to write a suicide note.
The lawsuit was filed in the Superior Court for the State of California for the County of San Francisco by Matthew and Maria Raine over the death of their son, Adam. The suit stated that Adam Raine had begun using ChatGPT in September of 2024, and he had been using it to explore his interests and future school plans at first.
