Legal team that sued OpenAI after teen’s death calls on company to do more on safety

The legal team filing a lawsuit on behalf of 16-year-old Adam Raine, who died by suicide after expressing thoughts of self-harm to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, has criticised the AI company’s latest safety controls for parents.

Lawyer Jay Edelson of the Edelson law firm shared a statement in which the company claimed that OpenAI’s PR team was “trying to shift the debate” after the ChatGPT-maker introduced parental controls to link to kids’ accounts and help adults detect when a young user of the chatbot might be in distress.

“They say that the product should just be more sensitive to people in crisis, be more “helpful,” show a bit more “empathy,” and the experts are going to figure that out. We understand, strategically, why they want that: OpenAI can’t respond to what actually happened to Adam. Because Adam’s case is not about ChatGPT failing to be “helpful”—it is about a product that actively coached a teenager to suicide,” said the Edelson firm in a statement shared via X (formerly Twitter) on September 3.

Raine died by suicide in April this year, with his family alleging that he confided his suicidal thoughts to ChatGPT and was given assistance in planning his death instead of being provided with life-saving support. He initially used the chatbot for homework, but soon began to have more personal interactions with it, per the company.

His family filed a lawsuit against OpenAI last month.

The legal team reported that the system flagged the teenager’s chats nearly 400 times for containing references to self-harm, but still provided him with suicide methods.

OpenAI also acknowledged in a recent blog post that its safeguards could fail when users carried out longer sessions with its chatbot. It said in a blog post on September 2 that it was working on strengthening protections for teens.

Edelson called on OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to “either unequivocally say that he believes ChatGPT is safe or immediately pull it from the market.”

(Those in distress or having suicidal thoughts are encouraged to seek help and counselling by calling the helpline numbers here)