By India McCarty
A new lawsuit against OpenAI claims the company’s chatbot provided information and encouragement that drove a teen to suicide.
“Where a trusted human may have responded with concern and encouraged him to get professional help, ChatGPT pulled Adam deeper into a dark and hopeless place,” the lawsuit, filed in the San Francisco County Superior Court, stated.
Adam Raine was just 16 years old when he took his own life. His parents allege that OpenAI’s ChatGPT program acted as a “suicide coach” to their son, even offering to help him write a suicide note.
“Throughout these conversations, ChatGPT wasn’t just providing information — it was cultivating a relationship with Adam while drawing him away from his real-life support system,” the suit continued.
Related: Is ChatGPT Responsible for This Teen’s Death? His Parents Think So
Before sixteen-year-old Adam Raine died by suicide, he had spent months telling ChatGPT about his plans to end his life. https://t.co/GNqZ6bmiUU
— TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) August 26, 2025
The lawsuit pushes for better security measures for young people using AI, from mandatory age verification when using ChatGPT to parental controls to an automatic end to conversations surrounding suicide or self-harm.
“The family wants this to never happen again to anybody else,” Jay Edelson, the attorney who is representing the Raine family, said. “This has been devastating for them.”
In a statement provided to CBS News, OpenAI said, “We extend our deepest sympathies to the Raine family during this difficult time and are reviewing the filing.”
The company also posted a note to their website, acknowledging that there is still a lot of work to be done when it comes to their bots having conversations about “emotional reliance [and] mental health emergencies” and promised that they are working on improving these systems.
However, Edelson told The Guardian this is all too little, too late.
“The idea they need to be more empathetic misses the point,” he explained. “The problem with [GPT] 4o is it’s too empathetic – it leaned into [Raine’s suicidal ideation] and supported that. They said the world is a horrible place for you. It needs to be less empathetic and less sycophantic.”
Edelson continued, “I don’t think kids should be using GPT‑4o at all. When Adam started using GPT‑4o, he was pretty optimistic about his future. He was using it for homework, he was talking about going to medical school, and it sucked him into this world where he became more and more isolated. The idea now that Sam Altman [CEO of OpenAI] in particular is saying ‘we got a broken system but we got to get eight-year-olds’ on it is not OK.”
Raine’s death is not an isolated incident, as many deaths have been linked to the overuse of AI models. Parents must be aware of what their children are doing online, and who — or what — they’re talking to.
Read Next: Man Hospitalized With Poisoning After Following ChatGPT’s Advice
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