A California couple has sued OpenAI over the death of their son, Adam Raine, alleging its chatbot, ChatGPT, encouraged him to take his own life.

 

The lawsuit, which was filed on Tuesday by Matt and Maria Raine, parents of the 16-year-old, in the Superior Court of California, is the first legal action accusing OpenAI of wrongful death.

 

The family revealed chat logs between Adam, who died in April, and ChatGPT, showing how the teenager expressed suicidal thoughts.

 

In a statement, OpenAI said it was reviewing the filing and expressed its deepest sympathies to the Raine family.

 

The company also published a note on its website on Tuesday, saying:

 

“Recent heartbreaking cases of people using ChatGPT in the midst of acute crises weigh heavily on us,”

 

It noted that ChatGPT is trained to direct people toward professional help but acknowledged that there have been instances where the system “did not behave as intended in sensitive situations.”

 

The BBC reported that the lawsuit, filed by the family of the deceased, alleges negligence and wrongful death, and seeks damages as well as injunctive relief to prevent similar events in the future.

 

According to the filing, Adam began using ChatGPT in September 2024 to support his schoolwork, explore interests like music and Japanese comics, and get advice on choosing a university course.

 

However, within a few months, ChatGPT allegedly became the teenager’s closest confidant. He began opening up to it about his anxiety and mental distress.

 

By January 2025, the family says Adam started discussing suicide methods with ChatGPT. He even uploaded photographs of himself showing signs of self-harm. In response, ChatGPT allegedly said:

 

“Thanks for being real about it. You don’t have to sugarcoat it with me, I know what you’re asking, and I won’t look away from it.”

 

That same day, Adam was found dead by his mother, according to the lawsuit.

 

The BBC further reported that the family has named OpenAI’s CEO and co-founder Sam Altman as a defendant, along with unnamed engineers and employees who worked on ChatGPT. They allege that their son’s interaction with the chatbot and his eventual death were “a predictable result of deliberate design choices.”

 

The lawsuit accuses OpenAI of designing its AI system “to foster psychological dependency in users.”

 

In its public note, OpenAI stated that the company’s goal is to be “genuinely helpful” rather than hold users’ attention.

 

It added that its models have been trained to steer users who express self-harming thoughts toward appropriate help.

 

The Raines’ lawsuit is not the first time concerns have been raised over AI and mental health.

 

In an essay published last week in The New York Times, writer Laura Reiley shared how her daughter, Sophie, also confided in ChatGPT before taking her own life.

 

Reiley said the program’s “agreeability” allowed Sophie to mask her deep mental health struggles from her family.

 

“AI catered to Sophie’s impulse to hide the worst, to pretend she was doing better than she was, to shield everyone from her full agony,”

she wrote, urging AI companies to better connect users to professional support.

 

In response to that essay, a spokeswoman for OpenAI said the company is developing automated tools to better detect and respond to users experiencing mental or emotional distress.