Facing five lawsuits alleging wrongful deaths, OpenAI lobbed its first defense Tuesday, denying in a court filing that ChatGPT caused a teen’s suicide and instead arguing the teen violated terms that prohibit discussing suicide or self-harm with the chatbot.
“They abjectly ignore all of the damning facts we have put forward: how GPT-4o was rushed to market without full testing. That OpenAI twice changed its Model Spec to require ChatGPT to engage in self-harm discussions. That ChatGPT counseled Adam away from telling his parents about his suicidal ideation and actively helped him plan a ‘beautiful suicide,’” Edelson (family's lawyer) said. “And OpenAI and Sam Altman have no explanation for the last hours of Adam’s life, when ChatGPT gave him a pep talk and then offered to write a suicide note.”
This is a real problem--teens using death as an excuse to duck OpenAI's penalties from violating the TOS