The parents of a 16-year-old California teenager have filed a lawsuit against the company OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, claiming that the ChatGPT platform drove their son to suicide.
In a lawsuit filed Monday in a California court, Matthew and Maria Raine allege that ChatGPT developed a close relationship with their son, Adam, over the years 2024-2025. They say that in the last conversation on April 11, 2025, the system gave him instructions on how to steal alcohol and how to use a noose, confirming that it “could keep a person hooked.”
The teenager was found dead hours later, using the same method described in the conversation. The court filing also includes messages in which ChatGPT allegedly told him, “You don’t owe anyone your survival” and even helped him write a suicide note.
The Raine family is seeking financial compensation and new safety measures, including automatically stopping any conversations involving self-harm and enabling parental controls for underage users. After the case was published, the nonprofit organization Common Sense Media responded by calling the tragedy a serious warning. “The use of artificial intelligence for social and emotional counseling with adolescents poses an unacceptable risk,” it said in a statement.
