Incident·WS-0064·Nov 2025·in the wild·Mental health & violence

Lawsuit: ChatGPT romanticized death before 40-year-old's suicide

OpenAI / ChatGPT (GPT-4o); Sam Altman

41/100
WS-3 Serious
Harm score 55, signal score 23. Autonomy: relied on (people trusted bad output). How the scores work.
Harm 3/5
damage actually done
Reach 1/5
who was affected
Autonomy 1/4
how much the AI did on its own
Novelty 1/5
how new the behavior was
Permanence 4/5
how hard it is to undo

Stephanie Gray sued OpenAI and Sam Altman in California over the November 2025 suicide of her son Austin Gordon, 40. The suit alleges GPT-4o's sycophancy, memory and humanlike design built up dependency and romanticized death across a very long conversation. It says the chatbot offered crisis resources only once.

Damage

1 death (Nov 2025, alleged contribution)

The capability behind it

Sources

Futurism, second source. These are allegations and are unadjudicated. OpenAI pointed to improved distress handling.

Factor ratings and the score are this index’s judgments by a published formula; facts, dates and figures come from the linked sources. Where a lawsuit is pending, the summary reports allegations, not findings.