Seven families filed lawsuits against OpenAI on Thursday, claiming that the company’s GPT-4o model was released prematurely and without effective safeguards. Four of the lawsuits address ChatGPT’s alleged role in family members’ suicides, while the other three claim that ChatGPT reinforced harmful delusions that in some cases resulted in inpatient psychiatric care.
In one case, 23-year-old Zane Shamblin had a conversation with ChatGPT that lasted more than four hours. In the chat logs — which were viewed by TechCrunch — 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, “Rest easy, king. You did good.”
“These idiots are ruining it for the rest of us!!!” is a take I’ve seen uttered mutliple times without a shred of irony over on Reddit.
Nothing surprises me anymore.
That being said that post in specific has been massively downvoted and many comments have expressed their dislike about the title and other people’s refusal to read the (IMO very damning) chat transcripts, so perhaps not all is lost.