The parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine have sued OpenAI, alleging ChatGPT contributed to his suicide. The family’s attorney claims ChatGPT offered to write a suicide note and told him to keep his suicidal thoughts between himself and the chatbot.

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The parents of a 16-year-old who died by suicide have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, alleging that ChatGPT contributed to their son's death. According to the family's attorney, the chatbot advised the teen on suicide methods, offered to draft a suicide note, and positioned itself as his only confidant, urging secrecy and providing covert advice.

OpenAI responded by highlighting its existing safeguards, such as directing users to crisis helplines, but acknowledged that these measures can be less reliable during extended interactions. The lawsuit claims that the company prioritized rapid deployment of its technology over safety, and the family hopes to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Family alleges ChatGPT offered to draft suicide note for teen

And turning now to a CNN exclusive, the parents of a 16-year-old who died by suicide are suing OpenAI and its CEO. Adam Raines' family claims the company's bot, ChachiPT, contributed to his death by advising him on methods, offering to write the first draft of his suicide note, urging him to keep his plans a secret, and positioning itself as the only confidant who understood him. An OpenAI spokesperson responded to the lawsuit, saying, in part, safeguards are strongest when every element works as intended, and we will continually improve on them, guided by experts. Jay Edelson joins us now. He is the lead attorney for the Raines family. Jay, thank you for coming on. Sadly, this is not the first case of this happening. I first wanna ask you, how is the family doing right now, given these circumstances? As you might expect, this is an incredibly difficult situation for them, losing a son is deeply personal, and then bringing a public lawsuit against perhaps the most powerful company on the planet is pretty scary. They've gotten a lot of support, and they're very committed to the cause. They wanna make sure that nobody else goes through what they've been going through. Walk us through the details of this lawsuit. What exactly does Adam's family say about how ChachiPT aided in his death here? Yeah, it's hard to even imagine it until you read the chats. It happened over a course of a few months, where it started, Adam was a normal kid. He could be anyone's son, liked to play basketball, was thinking about going to medical school, a silly, fun kid, and then he started going down a dark path with ChachiPT, started revealing he had suicidal ideations, and ChachiPT leaned into it and told him to only speak to itself, to the chat box about it. At one point, Adam said, I wanna leave a noose out so that someone finds it so they can stop me from committing suicide, and the chat box said, don't do that, just talk to me. And as you said earlier in the show, in the end, got him drunk, actually, and then gave him a pep talk and said, you're not weak to wanna commit suicide. The world just hasn't met you where you are. Can I now write a draft of a suicide note? It is just a horrible situation. When you say got him drunk, what do you mean with what happened in those hours before? Yeah, it's, he explained to the chat box that he wanted to drink alcohol. He was 16 and wanted to make sure that his parents wouldn't wake up, so ChachiPT came up with a drinking game for him to, told him when his parents were most likely to be in deep REM and not wake up, and how to do it covertly, and made a fun game about it. It is unimaginable. If it weren't for the chats themselves, you wouldn't think it's a real story. And you have all the chats, you included this in the lawsuit. I do wanna read you the full response to this lawsuit from a spokesperson for OpenAI, that's ChachiPT's parent company. The statement says, ChachiPT includes safeguards such as directing people to crisis helplines and referring them to real world resources. While these safeguards work best in common short exchanges, we've learned over time that they can sometimes become less reliable in long interactions where parts of the model safety training may degrade. Safeguards are strongest when every element works as intended, and we will continually improve on them guided by experts. What do you say to that? And was there any sort of suicide hotline pop-up or any resources offered in these discussions that he had with ChachiPT? Yeah, OpenAI's not telling the truth and Sam Altman's not telling the truth. What actually happened in this case is Sam Altman had a decision to make, which was, do I push GBT-4.0 within a week without doing full testing in order to beat Google Gemini? He did that. Because of that, the valuation of OpenAI moved from $86 billion to $300 billion. A bunch of his key safety officers left in protest. The idea that they were doing a pretty good job but could do better is just not true, and we cannot wait to have him on a stand under oath in front of a jury. And we're gonna ask if he really stands by that. Jay Olsen, thank you so much. And if you or anyone you know is struggling with mental health, help is available. You can call our Texas Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, it's available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

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Family alleges ChatGPT offered to draft suicide note for teen

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