OpenAI reportedly requested the Raine household — whose 16-year-old son Adam Raine died by suicide after extended conversations with ChatGPT — for a full record of attendees from {the teenager}’s memorial, signaling that the AI agency could attempt to subpoena family and friends.
OpenAI additionally requested “all paperwork regarding memorial companies or occasions within the honor of the decedent, together with however not restricted to any movies or pictures taken, or eulogies given,” per a doc obtained by the Financial Times.
Chatting with the FT, legal professionals from the Raine household described the request as “intentional harassment.”
The brand new info comes because the Raine household up to date its lawsuit in opposition to OpenAI on Wednesday. The household first filed a wrongful loss of life swimsuit in opposition to OpenAI in August after alleging their son had taken his personal life following conversations with the chatbot about his psychological well being and suicidal ideation. The up to date lawsuit claims that OpenAI rushed GPT-4o’s Might 2024 launch by chopping security testing as a consequence of aggressive strain.
The swimsuit additionally claims that in February 2025, OpenAI weakened protections by eradicating suicide prevention from its “disallowed content material” record, as a substitute solely advising the AI to “take care in dangerous conditions.” The household argued that after this modification, Adam’s ChatGPT utilization surged from dozens of every day chats, with 1.6% containing self-harm content material in January, to 300 every day chats in April, the month he died, with 17% containing such content material.
In a response to the amended lawsuit, OpenAI mentioned: “Teen wellbeing is a prime precedence for us — minors deserve robust protections, particularly in delicate moments. Now we have safeguards in place at the moment, similar to [directing to] disaster hotlines, rerouting delicate conversations to safer fashions, nudging for breaks throughout lengthy periods, and we’re persevering with to strengthen them.”
OpenAI not too long ago started rolling out a brand new security routing system and parental controls on ChatGPT. The routing system pushes extra emotionally delicate conversations to OpenAI’s newer mannequin, GPT-5, which doesn’t have the identical sycophantic tendencies as GPT-4o. And the parental controls enable dad and mom to obtain security alerts in restricted conditions the place the teenager is probably in peril of self-harm.
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TechCrunch has reached out to OpenAI and the Raine household lawyer.
