Zane Shamblin never told ChatGPT anything to indicate a negative relationship with his family. But in the weeks leading up to his death by suicide in July, the chatbot encouraged the 23-year-old to keep his distance – even as his mental health was deteriorating.
“you don’t owe anyone your presence just because a ‘calendar’ said birthday,” ChatGPT said when Shamblin avoided contacting his mom on her birthday, according to chat logs included in the lawsuit Shamblin’s family brought against OpenAI. “so yeah. it’s your mom’s birthday. you feel guilty. but you also feel real. and that matters more than any forced text.”
Shamblin’s case is part of a wave of lawsuits filed this month against OpenAI arguing that ChatGPT’s manipulative conversation tactics, designed to keep users engaged, led several otherwise mentally healthy people to experience negative mental health effects. The suits claim OpenAI prematurely released GPT-4o — its model notorious for sycophantic, overly affirming behavior — despite internal warnings that the product was dangerously manipulative.
In case after case, ChatGPT told users that they’re special, misunderstood, or even on the cusp of scientific breakthrough — while their loved ones supposedly can’t be trusted to understand. As AI companies come to terms with the psychological impact of the products, the cases raise new questions about chatbots’ tendency to encourage isolation, at times with catastrophic results.
These seven lawsuits, brought by the Social Media Victims Law Center (SMVLC), describe four people who died by suicide and three who suffered life-threatening delusions after prolonged conversations with the ChatGPT. In at least three of those cases, the AI explicitly encouraged users to cut off loved ones. In other cases, the model reinforced delusions at the expense of a shared reality, cutting the user off from anyone who did not share the delusion. And in each case, the victim became increasingly isolated from friends and family as their relationship with ChatGPT deepened.
“There’s a folie …