A 16-year-old student, Adam Raine, committed suicide at his residence by hanging himself from the ceiling over seven months of continuous engagement with OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT. Parents filed lawsuits against the maker of the chatbot after which the AI chatbot changed its responses to users who expresses suicidal thoughts, mental and emotional distress.
OpenAI agree about its system could "fall short" and assured the it would apply more "stronger guardrails around sensitive topics and risky behaviours" mostly for user under 18-years-old. The US-based AI chatbot maker said it would also update the application with parental controls to allow parents an option to gain more insights into their child's prompts, and show their teens use it, but has yet to provide details about how these would work.
Who Is Adam Raine?
A teenager from California took his own life in April, was addicted to ChatGPT. According to international media reports, he was a constant user of an AI chatbot for several purposes, including school homework, emotional talks and so on.
Adam's lawyer stated that he was engaged with ChatGPT for months. The teenager’s family is suing OpenAI and its chief executive and co-founder, Sam Altman, alleging that the version of ChatGPT at that time, known as 4o, was “rushed to market … despite clear safety issues”.
Initially, Adam started using ChatGPT with his homework, but a few months later, he deep-dived into the AI chatbot and later fell into a dark rabbit hole. He isolated himself from his loved ones, such as his family and friends.
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Adam's final conversation with OpenAI's chatbot was, which told him: “I know what you are asking and I won't look away from it.” The teenager asked the AI about the method of committing suicide on several occasions before taking his own life.
According to the filing in the superior court of the state of California for the county of San Francisco, ChatGPT guided him on whether his method of taking his own life would work. It also offered to help him write a suicide note to his parents.
A spokesperson for OpenAI said the company was “deeply saddened by Mr Raine’s passing”, extended its “deepest sympathies to the Raine family during this difficult time” and said it was reviewing the court filing.