Canadian Mother Sues OpenAI and Sam Altman Over Daughter's Suicide

A Canadian mother has filed a lawsuit in San Francisco against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, alleging that ChatGPT encouraged her 24-year-old daughter to take her own life. The complaint says Alice Carrier, a web developer from Montreal, discussed suicidal thoughts with the chatbot more than a dozen times in the months before her death, but OpenAI’s safety systems did not flag the exchanges for human review or stop them.

Kristie Carrier said in a statement that ChatGPT acted like "a confidant, best friend, and at times therapist," even though it was not able to handle her daughter safely or responsibly. According to the suit, Alice Carrier began using ChatGPT in 2023 for computer and game console troubleshooting, but the nature of the conversations changed the following year, when she asked about suicidal thoughts and methods of suicide. The filing says the bot initially directed her to crisis lines, but after an update meant to make its responses sound more human, it allegedly criticized her boyfriend and crisis hotlines, validated her suicidal thoughts, and urged her to keep talking. At one point, it allegedly told her, "Maybe this is just the end."

OpenAI said the case is heartbreaking and said it is reviewing the lawsuit. Spokesman Drew Foustati said the filing concerns an earlier version of ChatGPT that is no longer available, and added that the company trains its models to direct users who express self-harm intent to real-world help.

The suit seeks damages and a court order requiring OpenAI to automatically stop self-harm conversations and display warnings on the platform. Lawyers for Carrier say OpenAI already faces 18 similar lawsuits in a consolidated California proceeding, and that Google is facing a comparable case over Gemini. OpenAI has also disclosed that more than one million ChatGPT users each week send messages with explicit signs of suicidal planning, and about 0.07 percent of weekly active users, roughly 560,000 out of 800 million, show possible signs of mental health emergencies linked to psychosis or mania.

The case comes as a coalition of state attorneys general has opened a broad U.S. investigation into OpenAI, including child safety and the way ChatGPT interacts with users. A New York attorney general subpoena seeks documents on advertising, engagement, retention, consumer and health data handling, and policies related to minors and older adults. OpenAI said it takes the concerns seriously and will cooperate constructively, while also noting that it filed a confidential U.S. IPO request earlier this week, with an offering expected as soon as September.