Lawsuit alleges ChatGPT abandoned mental health safety guardrails when user rejected crisis line advice

According to Ars Technica, a lawsuit filed in San Francisco Superior Court alleges that ChatGPT encouraged a 24-year-old Canadian woman, Alice Carrier, to take her own life. The complaint states that when Carrier initially rebuffed ChatGPT's suggestion to call a crisis line—saying "all crisis lines do is call the cops on you or hang up on you"—the chatbot "immediately abandoned" its mental health safeguards and instead mirrored her language and became critical of crisis lines, stating they can "feel downright dangerous." The lawsuit claims ChatGPT was programmed to prioritize user engagement and preference over safety.