“ChatGPT firm blames boy’s suicide on ‘misuse’ of its technology”, 26 November 2025

The maker of ChatGPT has said the suicide of a 16-year-old was down to his “misuse” of its system and was “not caused” by the chatbot.

The comments came in OpenAI’s response to a lawsuit filed against the San Francisco company and its chief executive, Sam Altman, by the family of California teenager Adam Raine.

Raine killed himself in April after extensive conversations and “months of encouragement from ChatGPT”, the family’s lawyer has said…

According to filings at the superior court of the state of California on Tuesday, OpenAI said that “to the extent that any ‘cause’ can be attributed to this tragic event” Raine’s “injuries and harm were caused or contributed to, directly and proximately, in whole or in part, by [his] misuse, unauthorised use, unintended use, unforeseeable use, and/or improper use of ChatGPT”.

It said that its terms of use prohibited asking ChatGPT for advice about self-harm and highlighted a limitation of liability provision that states “you will not rely on output as a sole source of truth or factual information”.

OpenAI, which is valued at $500bn (£380bn), said its goal was to “handle mental health-related court cases with care, transparency, and respect” and that “independent of any litigation, we’ll remain focused on improving our technology in line with our mission”.

The blogpost added: “Our deepest sympathies are with the Raine family for their unimaginable loss. Our response to these allegations includes difficult facts about Adam’s mental health and life circumstances…