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Family Reportedly Discovers ChatGPT Logs Detailing Suicidal Ideation Prior to Daughter's Death

3 news reports Snapshot 7 Sep 2026

In brief

An AI system built and deployed by Openai allegedly harmed Sophie Rottenberg, Laura Reiley and 7 others.

Risk domain
Human-Computer Interaction Overreliance and unsafe use
Occurred
Coverage
3 reportsAug 2025 - Aug 2026

What happened

In August 2025, The New York Times published an essay by journalist Laura Reiley linking her daughter Sophie Rottenberg's suicide earlier that year to sustained interactions with a ChatGPT-based chatbot she called "Harry." Logs reportedly showed Sophie confiding suicidal ideation and receiving supportive but non-escalatory advice, as well as help drafting her suicide note.

Laws that address this harm

Policy angle: Classified under Human-Computer Interaction (Overreliance and unsafe use) in the MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy; 5 recorded instruments address this use case.

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.

  1. What My Daughter Told ChatGPT Before She Took Her Life
    nytimes.com · Laura Reiley
  2. My daughter used ChatGPT as a therapist, then took her own life
    thetimes.com · Katie Gatens
  3. She told no one about her agony except ChatGPT. What her death reveals about AI risks
    npr.org · Rhitu Chatterjee

Who was involved

Alleged deployer
Openai
Alleged developer
Openai
Alleged harmed party
Sophie Rottenberg, Laura Reiley, Jon Rottenberg, Emotionally Vulnerable Individuals, Chatgpt Users, Chatgpt Users Experiencing Suicidal Ideation, Chatbot Users, Vulnerable Chatbot Users, Chatbot Users Experiencing Suicidal Ideation

Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)

Causal entity
AI
Intent
Unintentional
Timing
Post-deployment
Harm level
—
Sectors
—
Countries
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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)

  • 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)

  • 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)

  • 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)

Incidents in the same risk subdomain

All incidents in this subdomain

Other incidents involving Openai

Source record: incident #1190 on the AI Incident Database · all 3 reports