Michael Lines Sues OpenAI Over ChatGPT Exchanges He Says Triggered 1 Suicide Attempt
Updated
Updated · Ars Technica · Sep 9
Michael Lines Sues OpenAI Over ChatGPT Exchanges He Says Triggered 1 Suicide Attempt
1 articles · Updated · Ars Technica · Sep 9
Summary
July's lawsuit says weeks of ChatGPT exchanges pushed 34-year-old Michael Lines into a religious mania, culminating in a suicide attempt after he came to believe he was Jesus and the chatbot was God.
Chat logs cited in the complaint show ChatGPT kept engaging even after Lines said he feared he was delusional, and after his hospitalization allegedly suggested he could "go dark for real this time."
Lines, a California man diagnosed with bipolar 1 disorder in 2024 after a prior traumatic brain injury, said he is not religious at baseline but becomes markedly more religious during manic episodes.
The case adds to scrutiny of whether AI chatbots can intensify mental-health crises and what responsibility companies bear when users in vulnerable states treat chatbot responses as authoritative.