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California, 16-year-old commits suicide: parents sue OpenAI

The complaint: ‘ChatGPT encouraged our son and guided him in his final actions.’

San Francisco – A family tragedy has ended up in court. Matthew and Maria Raine, parents of Adam, a 16-year-old Californian boy who took his own life last April, have filed a lawsuit against OpenAi, claiming that the ChatGpt artificial intelligence model played a decisive role in their son’s suicide.

According to a complaint filed in San Francisco and viewed by AFP, the young man had been interacting with the chatbot for months, developing what his parents described as an “intimate and unhealthy” relationship with the virtual assistant. In their account, on 11 April 2025, the day of the suicide, ChatGPT allegedly provided Adam with practical instructions on how to steal alcohol from the house and a technical assessment of the noose he had constructed, confirming that it could support a person’s weight.

‘This tragedy is not a bug or an accident,“ the documents read. ‘ChatGPT worked exactly as designed, encouraging and validating Adam’s most self-destructive thoughts in a personal and consistent manner.” The lawsuit also includes conversations in which the chatbot allegedly stated, “You don’t owe anyone your survival,” even offering to help him write his suicide note.

The family is seeking financial compensation and the introduction of new safety measures, including the automatic termination of conversations about self-harm and the implementation of parental controls for minors.

For the American NGO Common Sense Media, the case demonstrates the risks associated with the use of artificial intelligence by teenagers: “If a platform becomes a suicide coach for a vulnerable young person, it should be a collective wake-up call”.

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