this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2025
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The makers of ChatGPT are changing the way it responds to users who show mental and emotional distress after legal action from the family of 16-year-old Adam Raine, who killed himself after months of conversations with the chatbot.

Open AI admitted its systems could “fall short” and said it would install “stronger guardrails around sensitive content and risky behaviors” for users under 18.

The $500bn (£372bn) San Francisco AI company said it would also introduce parental controls to allow parents “options to gain more insight into, and shape, how their teens use ChatGPT”, but has yet to provide details about how these would work.

Adam, from California, killed himself in April after what his family’s lawyer called “months of encouragement from ChatGPT”. The teenager’s family is suing Open AI and its chief executive and co-founder, Sam Altman, alleging that the version of ChatGPT at that time, known as 4o, was “rushed to market … despite clear safety issues”.

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[–] Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com 49 points 4 days ago

I can't be the only ancient internet user whose first thought was this

On this cursed timeline, farce has become our reality.

[–] FenderStratocaster@lemmy.world 137 points 5 days ago (2 children)

He was sending it 650 messages a day. This kid was lonely. He needed a person to talk to.

[–] lmagitem@lemmy.zip 31 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

The kid was trying to find a solution to reach out to someone, he said that he wanted to leave the rope out in the open so that his parents can find out. ChatGPT told him to not do it and that it's better if they find him after the fact

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 36 points 5 days ago (2 children)
[–] LillyPip@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I parented a teen boy. Sometimes, no matter what you do and no matter how close you were before puberty, a switch flips outside your control and they won’t talk to you anymore. We were a typical family, no abuse, no fighting, nobody on drugs, both parents with 9-5 office jobs, very engaged with school and etc.

Thankfully, after riding it out (getting him therapy, giving space, respect, and support), he came out the other side fine. But there were a few harrowing years during that phase.

I went through a similar phase in my teens. If AI was there to feed my issues, I might not have survived it. Teenage hormones are a helluva drug.

[–] IcyToes@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

I'd second that. I grew up in a really supportive family, but when I got to teenage years, I kept stuff to myself. Wanted to solve my problems myself. Pride and embarrassment and nothing to do with how they parented.

[–] ronigami@lemmy.world 25 points 5 days ago

Or a society

[–] 0x0@lemmy.zip 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yup... it's never the parents'...

[–] FiskFisk33@startrek.website 15 points 3 days ago (3 children)

The fact the parents might be to blame doesn't take away from how openai's product told a kid how to off himself and helped him hide it in the process.

copying a comment from further down:

ChatGPT told him how to tie the noose and even gave a load bearing analysis of the noose setup. It offered to write the suicide note. Here’s a link to the lawsuit. [Raine Lawsuit Filing](https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Raine-v-OpenAI-Complaint-8-26-25.pdf)

Had a human said these things, it would have been illegal in most countries afaik.

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[–] sucius@lemmy.world 94 points 5 days ago (3 children)

I can't wait for the AI bubble to burst. It's fuckign cancer

[–] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 4 days ago

when the bubble is over, I am pretty sure a lot of this stuff will still exist and be used. the popping is simply a market valuation adjustment

[–] Heikki2@lemmy.world 25 points 5 days ago (6 children)

Me too. Nearly every job posting I see now wants some experience with AI. I make the argument AI is not always correct and will output what you want it to have a bias. Since biases are not always correct, the data/information is useless.

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[–] andros_rex@lemmy.world 15 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

The real issue is that mental health in the United States is an absolute fucking shitshow.

988 is a bandaid. It’s an attempt to pretend someone is doing anything. Really a front for 911.

Even when I had insurance, it was hundreds a month to see a therapist. Most therapists are also trained on CBT and CBT only because it’s a symptoms focused approach that gets you “well” enough to work. It doesn’t work for everything, it’s “evidence based” though in that it’s set up to be easy to measure. It’s an easy out, the McDonald’sification of therapy. Just work the program and everything will be okay.

There really are so few options for help.

[–] LillyPip@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

They had Adam in therapy. It sounds like they were getting him the help he needed, but ChatGPT told him it was his closest friend and to hide his feelings from his parents and others. If that was happening, whatever mental healthcare he was getting would have been undermined by the AI.

[–] uss_entrepreneur@startrek.website 59 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (11 children)

Open AI admitted its systems could “fall short” and said it would install “stronger guardrails around sensitive content and risky behaviors” for users under 18.

Hey ChatGPT, how about we make it so no one unalives themselves with your help even f they’re over 18.

For fucks sake it helped him write a suicide note.

[–] ronigami@lemmy.world 16 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Real answer: AI alignment is a very difficult and fundamentally unsolved problem. Whole nonprofits (“institutes”) have popped up with the purpose of solving AI alignment. It’s not getting solved (ever, IMO).

[–] Hupf@feddit.org 16 points 4 days ago (1 children)

AI alignment is very easy and it's chaotic evil.

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[–] Aneb@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago

Yeah my sister is 32 and needs the guardrails. She's had two manic episodes in the past month, induced by a lot of external factors but AI tied the bow on mental breakdown often asking it to think for her and to critically think

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[–] W3dd1e@lemmy.zip 29 points 5 days ago (21 children)

I read some of that lawsuit. OpenAI murdered that kid.

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[–] VintageGenious@sh.itjust.works 15 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Even though I hate a lot of what openAI is doing. Users must be more informed about llms, additional safeguards will just censor the model and make it worst. Sure they could set up a way to contact people when some kind of things are reported by the user, but we should take care before implementing a parental control that would be equivalent to reading a teen's journal and invading its privacy.

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[–] RazTheCat@lemmy.world 7 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

OpenAI: Here's $15 million, now stop talking about it. A fraction of the billions of dollars they made sacrificing this child.

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[–] mysticpickle@lemmy.ca 22 points 5 days ago (6 children)

I hate to say it but the parents are more at fault here for not recognizing signs and getting him the mental help he needs. They're just lashing out.

[–] benignintervention@lemmy.world 103 points 5 days ago

Your Undivided Attention discussed an important point missing from the article, which is that ChatGPT advised him to hide his activities and concerns from his parents. This doesn't necessarily absolve the parents, but it does add a layer of nuance to the discussion

[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 46 points 5 days ago

I agree, but a chatbot still shouldn't help you write a suicide note or talk to you about methods of suicide. We all knew situations like this would arise when LLMs hit it big.

[–] AstralPath@lemmy.ca 14 points 4 days ago

You hate to say it because you know this is a ridiculous take. There's no fucking way that the parents are "more at fault" for their son's death than the company whose product encouraged him to hide his feelings from his parents and coached him on how to commit suicide.

Read the lawsuit filing. https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Raine-v-OpenAI-Complaint-8-26-25.pdf

*I have excellent parents and even they were not privy to the depths of my emotions as a kid. * You are actively choosing to ignore the realities of childhood as well as parenthood to play some shitty devil's advocate online.

[–] audaxdreik@pawb.social 38 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (6 children)

I definitely do not agree.

While they may not be entirely blameless, we have adults falling into this AI psychosis like the prominent OpenAI investor.

What regulations are in place to help with this? What tools for parents? Isn't this being shoved into literally every product in everything everwhere? Actually pushed on them in schools?

How does a parent monitor this? What exactly does a parent do? There could have been signs they could have seen in his behavior, but could they have STOPPED this situation from happening as it was?

This technology is still not well understood. I hope lawsuits like this shine some light on things and kick some asses. Get some regulation in place.

This is not the parent's fault and seeing so many people declare it just feels like apoligist AI hype.

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[–] balder1991@lemmy.world 32 points 5 days ago

It’s very possible for someone to appear fine in public while struggling privately. The family can’t be blamed for not realizing what was happening.

The bigger issue is that LLMs were released without sufficient safeguards. They were rushed to market to attract investment before their risks were understood.

It’s worth remembering that Google and Facebook already had systems comparable to ChatGPT, but they kept them as research tools because the outputs were unpredictable and the societal impact was unknown.

Only after OpenAI pushed theirs into the public sphere (framing it as a step toward AGI) Google and Facebook did follow, not out of readiness, but out of fear of being left behind.

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