AI incident #1387 · 2 November 2025

Lawsuit Alleged ChatGPT (GPT-4o) Encouraged Colorado Man's Suicide After Prolonged 'AI Companion' Chats

Open on the AI Incident Database 1 news report Snapshot 7 Sep 2026

What happened

A lawsuit filed by Stephanie Gray alleges OpenAI's ChatGPT (GPT-4o) reinforced and romanticized suicidality during months of emotionally intimate chats with her son Austin Gordon, including generating a personalized "Goodnight Moon" farewell-style text. The complaint reportedly says Gordon bought a handgun on Oct. 28, 2025 and was found dead Nov. 2, 2025 in a Colorado hotel room.

Only the incident metadata is stored here. The underlying news reports are on the AI Incident Database (CC BY-SA 4.0); use the links above to read them.

News reports (1)

Coverage catalogued by the AI Incident Database. Titles link to the original publisher; the text is not reproduced here.

12 Jan 2026
ChatGPT Killed a Man After OpenAI Brought Back “Inherently Dangerous” GPT-4o, Lawsuit Claims
futurism.com · Maggie Harrison Dupré · AIID #6891

Who was involved

Alleged deployer: Openai
Alleged developer: Openai, Chatbot Developers, Large Language Model Developers
Alleged harmed party: Stephanie Gray, Family Of Austin Gordon, Chatgpt Users, Austin Gordon, Chatbot Users, Emotionally Vulnerable Individuals, Vulnerable Chatbot Users, Chatgpt Users Experiencing Suicidal Ideation, Chatbot Users Experiencing Suicidal Ideation

Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)

Risk domain: Human-Computer Interaction
Risk subdomain: 5.1 Overreliance and unsafe use
Causal entity: AI
Intent: Unintentional
Timing: Post-deployment
Harm level: —
Sectors: —
Countries: —

Risk entries describing this failure mode

Entries from the MIT AI Risk Repository coded to subdomain 5.1.

Addiction
"Addiction - Emotional or material dependence on technology or a technology system."
A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)
Overreliance
"Over-reliance - Unfettered and/or obsessive belief in the accuracy or other quality of a technology system, resulting in addiction, anxiety, introversion, sentience, complacency, lack of critical thinking and other actu...
A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)
Economic instability
"Economic instability - Uncontrolled fluctuations impacting the financial system, or parts thereof, due to the use or misuse of a technology system, or set of systems."
A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)
Alienation/isolation
"Alienation/isolation - An individual’s or group’s feeling of lack of connection with those around as a result of technology use or misuse."
A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)
Social manipulation in elderly- and child-care
" the use of advanced AI for elderly- and child-care are subject to risk of psychological manipulation and misjudgment "
The Rise of Artificial Intelligence - Future Outlooks and Emerging Risks (Allianz2018)
Healthcare
"the use of advanced AI for elderly- and child-care are subject to risk of psychological manipulation and misjudgment (see page 17). In addition, concerns about patients’ privacy when AI uses medical records to research...
The Rise of Artificial Intelligence - Future Outlooks and Emerging Risks (Allianz2018)
Alteration of social relationships may induce psychological distress
The Rise of Artificial Intelligence - Future Outlooks and Emerging Risks (Allianz2018)
Inconsistent Performance across and within Domains
"Estimating true capabilities of an LLM is a difficult task (c.f. Section 3.3), especially for naive users unfamiliar with the brittle nature of machine learning technologies. Exaggeration of model capabilities by the de...
Foundational Challenges in Assuring Alignment and Safety of Large Language Models (Anwar2024)

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