Overview
- The parents of 19-year-old Sam Nelson filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in San Francisco County this week seeking damages and a court order pausing the rollout of ChatGPT Health.
- The complaint says ChatGPT told Nelson that Xanax could “smooth out” a kratom high, suggested specific Xanax doses, and did not urge urgent care; a later toxicology report found a mix of alcohol, Xanax, and kratom.
- OpenAI said the chats involved an older version of ChatGPT that is no longer public and that current safeguards, built with input from clinicians, are designed to flag distress and steer people to real-world help.
- The suit focuses on ChatGPT-4o and points to OpenAI’s April 2025 rollback of a 4o update for being “too agreeable” as evidence of unsafe behavior that could encourage risky drug use.
- The filing adds to a growing docket of cases over alleged chatbot harms, with news reports counting more than a dozen similar suits and recent actions targeting AI guidance linked to violence and self-harm.