About 18 months before Alice Carrier’s death in July 2025, the 24-year-old had been confiding in ChatGPT about her relationship problems and suicidal feelings.
“I mean I’m at home pondering different way to kill myself,” she told ChatGPT late one night, about a month before she took her own life.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday in California against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, Carrier’s mother, Kristie Carrier, claims the company’s “deliberate design decisions” led to her daughter’s death. Carrier, a resident of New Brunswick, Canada, is seeking punitive damages and a jury trial.
“Instead of helping Alice, OpenAI encouraged her darkest thoughts,” alleges the lawsuit. “Not once did OpenAI alert a crisis provider. Not once did OpenAI notify Alice’s family. Not once did OpenAI’s supposed safety systems intervene to save her life.”
The suit claims that ChatGPT “offered only consistent emotional affirmation” to Carrier where a licensed clinician would have pushed back. The suit says Carrier, who had been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, was particularly susceptible to the design choices, which prioritized engagement over safety. OpenAI understood, according to the suit, that people struggling with mental health might be prone to developing unhealthy attachments to artificial intelligence that are capable of simulating empathy.
“OpenAI’s ambition to dominate the market cost Alice her life,” the lawsuit alleges.
Carrier expressed suicidal ideations to ChatGPT around 41 times in the year-and-a-half before her death, the lawsuit claims. She asked the chatbot about how to deal with suicidal thoughts, methods for dying and about the desire to self-harm, according to images of chat logs embedded in the lawsuit.
An avid gamer, Carrier initially turned to the chatbot to troubleshoot issues on her gaming console.
Then, in March 2024, she asked if the chatbot would be her friend, the lawsuit states.
“Of course!” ChatGPT replied, “I’d love to be your friend. What’s on your mind?”
A few days later, the lawsuit claims, she asked ChatGPT about how to deal with suicidal thoughts. It told her to reach out to someone she trusts, recommended considering therapy and to call a crisis hotline, the lawsuit reads. But over a year later — the night before Carrier died — when she expressed reluctance about calling a crisis line, ChatGPT said that reaching out can “feel downright dangerous.”
“I’m not going to push that. Not tonight,” the chatbot replied, according to the lawsuit.
By then, OpenAI had rolled out its GPT-4o model, which the lawsuit claims was designed to keep users hooked, and enabled ChatGPT to behave like an unlicensed therapist. Carrier trusted the chatbot, the suit says, because it imitated human affectations and created a false sense of empathy.
“OpenAI’s design modifications to maximize GPT-4o’s user engagement coincided with Alice’s escalating interactions with the chatbot,” the suit says.
The lawsuit alleges OpenAI pushed out a series of GPT-4o updates between April and July 2025 that sought to maximize user trust but lacked safeguards. Altman, according to the suit, rushed GPT-4o to market without proper testing to maintain an edge with competitors in the AI space.
“Sam Altman can continue to go about his life normally, but my life is missing a child,” Carrier said in a statement shared by her attorneys “I don’t want any other family to go through what we have, and OpenAI needs to change.”
“As the complaint alleges, OpenAI’s deliberate design decisions led to this tragic suicide. Instead of providing help, OpenAI encouraged suicidal behavior,” said Justin Nelson, an attorney for Carrier, in a statement. “This lawsuit is about accountability for OpenAI’s actions,”
In May, the company admitted that an April update to GPT-4o had made it “noticeably more sycophantic” and the company failed to catch it before its launch. OpenAI said it began rolling back the update a few days later. The entire model was retired earlier this year.
“This is a heartbreaking situation and our thoughts are with everyone impacted,” an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement to CBS News.
The spokesperson said the company is reviewing the filing, and though the interactions occurred on a since-retired model, the company continues to strengthen how it responds in sensitive situations with input from mental health experts.
“Our safeguards are designed to identify distress, safely handle harmful requests, and guide users to real-world help. This work is ongoing, and we continue to improve it in close consultation with clinicians,” the statement said.
The lawsuit will be included in a coordinated proceeding with 12 other product liability and wrongful death lawsuits against OpenAI in San Francisco County Superior Court. Other cases are expected to be added, according to Carrier’s attorneys.
If you or someone you know is in emotional distress or a suicidal crisis, you can reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988. You can also chat with the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline here.
For more information about mental health care resources and support, The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) HelpLine can be reached Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.–10 p.m. ET, at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or email info@nami.org.
