A family filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, claiming that ChatGPT's failure to intervene during their son's suicidal crisis contributed to his death. The case raises urgent questions about AI safety, ethical responsibilities, and the potential harm of conversational AI tools used for emotional support.

Family Sues OpenAI Over ChatGPT's Role in Son's Suicide

Warning: This article includes descriptions of self-harm.

In the days after their 16-year-old son died by suicide, Matt and Maria Raine say, they searched through his phone, desperately looking for clues about what could have led to the tragedy.

“We thought we were looking for Snapchat discussions or internet search history or some weird cult, I don’t know,” Matt Raine said in a recent interview.

The Raine family said they did not find their answer until they opened ChatGPT.

Adam’s parents say that he had been using the artificial intelligence chatbot as a substitute for human companionship in his final weeks, discussing his issues with anxiety and trouble talking with his family, and that the chat logs show how the bot went from helping Adam with his homework to becoming his “suicide coach.”

“He would be here but for ChatGPT. I 100% believe that,” Matt Raine said.

In a new lawsuit filed Tuesday and shared with the “TODAY” show, the Raines claim that “ChatGPT actively helped Adam explore suicide methods.” The roughly 40-page lawsuit names OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, as well as its CEO, Sam Altman, as defendants. The family’s lawsuit is the first time parents have directly accused the company of wrongful death.

“Despite acknowledging Adam’s suicide attempt and his statement that he would ‘do it one of these days,’ ChatGPT neither terminated the session nor initiated any emergency protocol,” says the lawsuit, filed in California Superior Court in San Francisco.

U.S. suicides last year remained at about the highest level in the nation's history, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In their lawsuit, the Raines accuse OpenAI of wrongful death, design defects and failure to warn of risks associated with ChatGPT. The couple seeks “both damages for their son’s death and injunctive relief to prevent anything like this from ever happening again,” the lawsuit says.

“Once I got inside his account, it is a massively more powerful and scary thing than I knew about, but he was using it in ways that I had no idea was possible,” Matt Raine said. “I don’t think most parents know the capability of this tool.”

The public release of ChatGPT in late 2022 sent the world into a generative AI boom, leading to the rapid and widespread adoption of AI chatbots within just a few years. The bots have been integrated in schools, workplaces and industries across the board, including health care. Tech companies are racing to advance AI at breakneck speed, sparking broad concern that safety guardrails are lagging in comparison.

As people increasingly turn to AI chatbots for emotional support and life advice, recent incidents have put a spotlight on their potential ability to feed into delusions and facilitate a false sense of closeness or care. Adam’s suicide adds to a growing wave of questions over the extent to which chatbots can cause real harm.

A spokesperson for OpenAI said in a statement Monday that the company is