AI incident ·
GPT-4o Allegedly Reinforced California Man Michael Lines's Delusions Before Suicide Attempt
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 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 (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