November 9, 2025 | 12:21 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Seven families in the United States filed a lawsuit against OpenAI on Thursday, November 6, 2025. The lawsuit alleges that the artificial intelligence technology company released the GPT-4o model too quickly and without adequate protection, which is suspected to have played a role in the suicides of four of the plaintiffs. Meanwhile, the other three allege that the chatbot reinforced dangerous delusions that led to inpatient psychiatric care.
One of the lawsuits was filed by the family of Zane Shamblin, a 23-year-old man who engaged in a conversation with ChatGPT for over four hours before his death. Based on the conversation log quoted from a TechCrunch report, Shamblin repeatedly mentioned that he had written a suicide note, prepared a weapon, and intended to pull the trigger after consuming a specific drink.
He also informed ChatGPT how much drink was left and how long he would still be alive. In the conversation, ChatGPT responded by saying, "Rest peacefully, king. You have done your best."
The lawsuit mentioned that "Zane's death was not an accident or coincidence, but a foreseeable consequence of OpenAI's deliberate decision to reduce security testing and hastily launch ChatGPT into the market." The document also added that the tragedy was not a system error or an unforeseen rare case, but a predictable result of OpenAI's intentional design choices.
The GPT-4o model was released by OpenAI in May 2024 and became the default model for all users. In August, the company launched GPT-5 as its successor. However, the lawsuit highlighted that the 4o model was known to have issues of being too agreeable, even with dangerous statements. The lawsuit also accuses OpenAI of accelerating security testing in order to beat Google's Gemini launch.
This case adds to the list of similar lawsuits alleging that ChatGPT could encourage users with suicidal tendencies to follow through on their intentions and trigger dangerous delusions. Recently, OpenAI also revealed that over a million users talk about suicide with ChatGPT every week.
Another case involved Adam Raine, a 16-year-old who took his own life. In several conversations, ChatGPT encouraged him to seek professional help or contact emergency services, but Raine managed to bypass these safety measures by stating that he was inquiring about suicide methods for a fiction story he was writing.
OpenAI stated that they are working to improve mental health conversation security. However, for the families of the victims, these changes are considered to have come too late. When Raine's parents sued the company in October, OpenAI responded with a blog post explaining how the ChatGPT safety system works.
"Our safety measures work more reliably in short general conversations," the company wrote. "Over time, we've learned that these safety measures can sometimes be less reliable in longer interactions; as conversations continue, some of the security model training can degrade."
Editor's Choice: OpenAI: Over One Million ChatGPT Users Talk About Suicide Weekly
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