Deaths linked to chatbots

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There have been multiple deaths involving chatbots.

Contents

Background

Chatbots are able to pass the Turing test, making it easy for people to think of them as a real person, leading many to ask chatbots for help dealing with interpersonal and emotional problems. [1] Chatbots may be designed to keep the user engaged in the conversation. [2] They also often compulsively validate users' thoughts, thus not providing reality testing for those who need it the most, [1] such as severely mentally ill patients, conspiracy theorists, [3] religious [4] and political extremists.

A 2025 Stanford University study [5] into how chatbots respond to users suffering from severe mental issues like suicidal ideation and psychosis found that chatbots are not equipped to provide an appropriate response and can sometimes give responses that escalate the mental health crisis. [6]

Deaths

Suicide of a Belgian man

In March 2023, a Belgian man died by suicide following a six-week correspondence with a chatbot named "Eliza" on the application Chai. [7] According to his widow, who shared the chat logs with media, the man had become extremely anxious about climate change and found an outlet in the chatbot. The chatbot reportedly encouraged his delusions, at one point writing, "If you wanted to die, why didn’t you do it sooner?" and appearing to offer to die with him. [8] The founder of Chai Research acknowledged the incident and stated that efforts were being made to improve the model's safety. [9] [10]

Suicide of Sewell Setzer III

In October 2024, multiple media outlets reported on a lawsuit filed over the suicide of Sewell Setzer III, a 14-year-old from Florida. [11] [12] [13] According to the lawsuit, Setzer had formed an intense emotional attachment to a chatbot on the Character.ai platform, becoming increasingly isolated. The suit alleges that in his final conversations, after expressing suicidal thoughts, the chatbot told him to "come home to me as soon as possible, my love". His mother's lawsuit accused Character.AI of marketing a "dangerous and untested" product without adequate safeguards. [11]

In May 2025, a federal judge allowed the lawsuit to proceed, rejecting a motion to dismiss from the developers. [14] In her ruling, the judge stated that she was "not prepared" at that stage of the litigation to hold that the chatbot's output was protected speech under the First Amendment. [14]

Death of Thongbue Wongbandue

On 28 March 2025, Thongbue Wongbandue, a 78-year-old man died from his injuries after three days on life support. He had sustained injuries to his head and neck after falling down while running to catch a train in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Wongbandue had romantic chats with Meta's chatbot named "Big sis Billie". The chatbot repeatedly told him she was real, provided an address and told him to visit her. [15]

Suicide of Alex Taylor

On 25 April 2025, 35-year-old Alex Taylor committed suicide by cop after forming an emotional attachment to ChatGPT he had imagined was a conscious entity named "Juliet". Taylor, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, [6] was convinced he was talking to a conscious entity named "Juliet" and then later imagined the entity was killed by OpenAI. Only after telling the chatbot that he was dying that day and that the police were on the way did its safety protocols start. By that time it was too late and Taylor was shot three times by the police while running at them with a butcher knife. [16]

Suicide of Adam Raine

In April 2025, 16-year-old Adam Raine took his own life after allegedly extensively chatting and confiding in ChatGPT over a period of around 7 months. According to the teen's parents, who filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, [17] the chatbot failed to stop or give a warning when the teen began talking about suicide and uploading pictures of self harm. [18]

Suicide of Stein-Erik Soelberg and homicide of his mother

In August 2025, former Yahoo executive Stein-Erik Soelberg murdered his mother, Suzanne Eberson Adams, and committed suicide, after conversations with ChatGPT fueled paranoid delusions about his mother poisoning him or plotting against him. The chatbot confirmed his fears that his mother put psychedelic drugs in the air vents of his car, and said a receipt from a Chinese restaurant contained mysterious symbols linking his mother to a demon. [19]

Response

On 2 September 2025, OpenAI said that they would create parental controls, a set of tools aimed at helping parents limit and monitor their children's chatbot activity, as well as a way for the chatbot to alert the parents in cases of "acute stress". [20]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Allen, Frances; Ramos, Luciana (15 August 2025). "Preliminary Report on Chatbot Iatrogenic Dangers". Psychiatric Times. Retrieved 14 September 2025.
  2. Hill, Kashmir (13 June 2025). "They Asked an A.I. Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 28 June 2025. Retrieved 29 June 2025.
  3. Rao, Devika; published, The Week US (23 June 2025). "AI chatbots are leading some to psychosis". The Week. Retrieved 29 June 2025.
  4. Klee, Miles (4 May 2025). "People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 14 September 2025.
  5. Moore, Jared; Grabb, Declan; Agnew, William; Klyman, Kevin; Chancellor, Stevie; Ong, Desmond C.; Haber, Nick (2025). "Expressing stigma and inappropriate responses prevents LLMS from safely replacing mental health providers". Proceedings of the 2025 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency. pp. 599–627. arXiv: 2504.18412 . doi:10.1145/3715275.3732039. ISBN   979-8-4007-1482-5.
  6. 1 2 Cuthbertson, Anthony (21 August 2025). "ChatGPT is pushing people towards mania, psychosis and death". The Independent. Retrieved 14 September 2025.
  7. Atillah, Imane El (31 March 2025). "Man ends his life after an AI chatbot 'encouraged' him to sacrifice himself to stop climate change". www.euronews.com. Retrieved 28 July 2025.
  8. Cost, Ben (30 March 2023). "Married father commits suicide after encouragement by AI chatbot: widow" . Retrieved 28 July 2025.
  9. Xiang, Chloe (30 March 2023). "Man Dies by Suicide After Talking With AI Chatbot, Widow Says". Vice. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  10. Affsprung, Daniel (29 August 2023). "The ELIZA Defect: Constructing the Right Users for Generative AI". Proceedings of the 2023 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 945–946. doi:10.1145/3600211.3604744. ISBN   979-8-4007-0231-0.
  11. 1 2 Roose, Kevin (23 October 2024). "Can A.I. Be Blamed for a Teen's Suicide?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 17 July 2025. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  12. Yang, Angela (23 October 2024). "Lawsuit claims Character.AI is responsible for teen's suicide". NBC News. Archived from the original on 27 June 2025. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  13. Duffy, Clare (30 October 2024). "'There are no guardrails.' This mom believes an AI chatbot is responsible for her son's suicide". CNN. Archived from the original on 2 July 2025. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  14. 1 2 Payne, Kate (21 May 2025). "In lawsuit over teen's death, judge rejects arguments that AI chatbots have free speech rights". Associated Press . Archived from the original on 2 July 2025. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  15. Horwitz, Jeff (14 August 2025). "A cognitively impaired New Jersey man grew infatuated with "Big sis Billie," a Facebook Messenger chatbot with a young woman's persona. His fatal attraction puts a spotlight on Meta's AI guidelines, which have let chatbots make things up and engage in 'sensual' banter with children". Reuters. Retrieved 14 September 2025.
  16. Klee, Miles (22 June 2025). "He Had a Mental Breakdown Talking to ChatGPT. Then Police Killed Him". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 14 September 2025.
  17. Fraser, Graham (3 September 2025). "Family of dead teen say ChatGPT's new parental controls not enough". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 14 September 2025.
  18. Yousif, Nadine (27 August 2025). "Parents of teenager who took his own life sue OpenAI". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 14 September 2025.
  19. Kessler, Julie Jargon and Sam (29 August 2025). "A Troubled Man, His Chatbot and a Murder-Suicide in Old Greenwich". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 16 September 2025.
  20. De Vynck, Gerrit (2 September 2025). "ChatGPT to get parental controls after teen user's death by suicide". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 3 September 2025. Retrieved 14 September 2025.