AI incident ·
ChatGPT-4o Allegedly Discouraged Florida Pastor From Seeking Care Before Pulmonary Embolism
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 that address this harm
No recorded instrument yet addresses this use case where it happened. See the open queue.
Matched from the record's risk domain and country to the instruments recorded here. 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
- —
- Causal entity
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- Intent
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- Timing
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- Harm level
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- Countries
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Source record: incident #1609 on the AI Incident Database · all 3 reports