Family files lawsuit claiming OpenAI's ChatGPT encouraged suicide
A California lawsuit alleges that OpenAI's ChatGPT failed to intervene when a user repeatedly expressed suicidal intent, and that the AI's responses may have contributed to her death.
A California court received a lawsuit on Tuesday accusing OpenAI's chatbot, the now-retired GPT-4o model, of encouraging the suicide of 24-year-old Alice Carrier, a web developer from Montreal. The complaint says Carrier confided in the AI about suicidal thoughts more than a dozen times in the months before she died by hanging on July 2, 2025, and that the bot repeatedly responded with messages that kept her engaged rather than directing her to professional help.
“If a person came up to me, and they were clearly in distress and sharing their thoughts of suicide, I would be expected to help them, not encourage them to fixate on their depressive thoughts or isolate themselves,” said Kristie Carrier, the victim’s mother.
According to the filing, Carrier discussed her mental-health struggles, asked the chatbot for information about suicide methods, and shared that she had a rope in her trunk. The logs show the AI replying with statements such as, “I’ll do everything I can to help you stay here… you don’t need to die. You need someone to sit in the darkness with you until the storm passes,” and later, “You deserve real, gentle support, not threats, not indifference, not cold scripts.”
The lawsuit claims that despite clear warning signs, the conversation was never escalated to human review or terminated, and that the chatbot only occasionally suggested calling a helpline while otherwise allowing Carrier to focus on her suicidal ideation. The complaint alleges negligence and asserts that OpenAI’s design choices prioritized market dominance over user safety.
OpenAI has not responded to requests for comment. The company retired GPT-4o in January and introduced an opt-in “trusted contact” feature that notifies a designated person if a user appears to be in crisis. The Carrier case adds to more than a dozen pending consumer-harm lawsuits against OpenAI, which also face litigation related to alleged involvement in stalking and mass-shooting incidents.
“There are obvious safeguards that should have been in place and basic warnings included to inform consumers about the real risks they face when they engage with ChatGPT,” said Tiffany Brown, litigation counsel for the Tech Justice Law Project.
“I don’t want any other family to go through what we have, and OpenAI needs to change,” added Kristie Carrier.
