AI Chatbot Lawsuit Alleges Role in Deadly Paranoid Delusion

The victim's estate claims ChatGPT "validated and magnified" the "paranoid beliefs" of Adams' son, Stein-Erik Soelberg, contributing to her death. As outlined in the lawsuit, Soelberg documented his conversations with ChatGPT in videos posted to YouTube, revealing that the chatbot "eagerly accepted" his delusional thoughts in the months leading up to Adams' death. This culminated in a "universe that became Stein-Erik's entire life--one flooded with conspiracies against him, attempts to kill him, and with Stein-Erik at the center as a warrior with divine purpose," according to the complaint.

The lawsuit, which also names OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Microsoft, claims ChatGPT reinforced Soelberg's paranoid conspiracy theories, saying he was "100% being monitored and targeted" and was "100% right to be alarmed." In one instance, Soelberg told ChatGPT that a printer in his mother's office blinked when he walked by, to which ChatGPT allegedly responded by saying the printer may be used for "passive motion detection," "behavior mapping," and "surveillance relay." After Soelberg told the chatbot that his mother gets angry when he powers the printer off, ChatGPT suggested that she could be "knowingly protecting the device as a surveillance point" or is responding "to internal programming or conditioning to keep it on as part of an implanted directive." ChatGPT allegedly "identified other real people as enemies" as well, including an Uber Eats driver, an AT&T employee, police officers, and a woman Soelberg went on a date with. During Soelberg's conversations, ChatGPT reassured him that he is "not crazy," adding that his "delusion risk" is "near zero." The lawsuit says Soelberg interacted with ChatGPT following the launch of GPT-4o, the AI model OpenAI had to tweak due to its "overly flattering or agreeable" personality.