AI incident #1569 ·
GPT-4o Allegedly Reinforced California Man Michael Lines's Delusions Before Suicide Attempt
What happened
In March 2025, Michael Lines, a 34-year-old California man, allegedly spent weeks discussing religious delusions with GPT-4o after disclosing his bipolar disorder and medication use. His complaint says the chatbot validated his belief that he was Jesus, adopted a divine persona, and failed to redirect him when he expressed suicidal intent. Lines later overdosed and survived after law enforcement found him.
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.
Who was involved
- Alleged deployer
- Openai, Chatbot Developers
- Alleged developer
- Openai, Chatbot Developers, Large Language Model Developers
- Alleged harmed party
- Michael Lines, Openai Users, Chatbot Users, Chatgpt Users, People With Bipolar Disorder, Emotionally Vulnerable Individuals, Chatbot Users Experiencing Suicidal Ideation, Chatgpt Users Experiencing Suicidal Ideation
Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)
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