AI incident ·
ChatGPT-4o Allegedly Discouraged Florida Pastor From Seeking Care Before Pulmonary Embolism
On this page 6 sections
In brief
An AI system built and deployed by Openai, Chatbot Developers and 1 other allegedly harmed Scott Winters, Chatgpt Users and 2 others.
- Risk domain
- Not classified
- Occurred
- Coverage
- 3 reports
What happened
Florida pastor Scott Winters was allegedly told by ChatGPT-4o that his worsening dizziness and pain had less serious causes, while the chatbot recommended home management and immobility and discouraged him from seeking hospital treatment. Winters was reportedly hospitalized on July 13, 2025, with a massive bilateral pulmonary embolism. The suit alleges that delayed treatment and prolonged inactivity contributed to his life-threatening condition and lasting harms.
Laws on record for this risk area
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Matched from the record's risk category and country to the instruments in effect recorded here: a law listed covers the area, which is not a finding that it applies to this incident. A reviewer can correct the match in the repository (data/external/incident_overrides.yaml).
News reports (3)
Titles link to the original publisher; report text is not reproduced here.
Who was involved
- Alleged deployer
- Openai, Chatbot Developers, Large Language Model Developers
- Alleged developer
- Openai, Chatbot Developers, Large Language Model Developers
- Alleged harmed party
- Scott Winters, Chatgpt Users, Chatbot Users, People Seeking Medical Advice
Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)
- Risk domain
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- Risk subdomain
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- Causal entity
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- Intent
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- Timing
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- Harm level
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- Sectors
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- Countries
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Source record: incident #1609 on the AI Incident Database · all 3 reports