AI incident ·
GPT-4o Allegedly Reinforced California Man Michael Lines's Delusions Before Suicide Attempt
On this page 6 sections
In brief
An AI system built by Openai, Chatbot Developers and 1 other and deployed by Openai and Chatbot Developers allegedly harmed Michael Lines, Openai Users and 6 others.
- Risk domain
- Not classified
- Occurred
- Coverage
- 1 report
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.
Laws on record for this risk area
No instrument on record yet covers this risk area where it happened. See the open queue.
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 (1)
Titles link to the original publisher; report 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)
- 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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Source record: incident #1569 on the AI Incident Database · all 1 report