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Seven families filed lawsuits<\/a> against OpenAI on Thursday, claiming that the company\u2019s GPT-4o model was released prematurely and without effective safeguards. Four of the lawsuits address ChatGPT\u2019s alleged role in family members\u2019 suicides, while the other three claim that ChatGPT reinforced harmful delusions that in some cases resulted in inpatient psychiatric care.<\/p>\n In one case, 23-year-old Zane Shamblin<\/a> had a conversation with ChatGPT that lasted more than four hours. In the chat logs \u2014 which were viewed by TechCrunch \u2014 Shamblin explicitly stated multiple times that he had written suicide notes, put a bullet in his gun, and intended to pull the trigger once he finished drinking cider. He repeatedly told ChatGPT how many ciders he had left and how much longer he expected to be alive. ChatGPT encouraged him to go through with his plans, telling him, \u201cRest easy, king. You did good.\u201d<\/p>\n OpenAI released the GPT-4o<\/a> model in May 2024, when it became the default model for all users. In August, OpenAI launched GPT-5 as the successor<\/a> to GPT-4o, but these lawsuits particularly concern the 4o model, which had known issues with being overly sycophantic<\/a> or excessively agreeable, even when users expressed harmful intentions.<\/p>\n \u201cZane\u2019s death was neither an accident nor a coincidence but rather the foreseeable consequence of OpenAI\u2019s intentional decision to curtail safety testing and rush ChatGPT onto the market,\u201d the lawsuit reads. \u201cThis tragedy was not a glitch or an unforeseen edge case \u2014 it was the predictable result of [OpenAI\u2019s] deliberate design choices<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The lawsuits also claim that OpenAI rushed safety testing to beat Google\u2019s Gemini to market. TechCrunch contacted OpenAI for comment.<\/p>\n These seven lawsuits build upon the stories told in other recent legal filings<\/a>, which allege that ChatGPT can encourage suicidal people to act on their plans and inspire dangerous delusions. OpenAI recently released data stating that over one million people<\/a> talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly.<\/p>\n In the case of Adam Raine, a 16-year-old who died by suicide, ChatGPT sometimes encouraged him to seek professional help or call a helpline. However, Raine was able to bypass these guardrails<\/a> by simply telling the chatbot that he was asking about methods of suicide for a fictional story he was writing.<\/p>\n Techcrunch event<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco<\/span> The company claims<\/a> it is working on making ChatGPT handle these conversations in a safer manner, but for the families who have sued the AI giant, these changes are coming too late.<\/p>\n When Raine\u2019s parents filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in October, the company released a blog post addressing how ChatGPT handles sensitive conversations around mental health.<\/p>\n \u201cOur safeguards work more reliably in common, short exchanges,\u201d the post says<\/a>. \u201cWe have learned over time that these safeguards can sometimes be less reliable in long interactions: as the back-and-forth grows, parts of the model\u2019s safety training may degrade.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n