Parents of woman who died of seizure sue OpenAI over ChatGPT advice
The parents of Bowen Wan, a Chinese software engineer living in Seattle, have sued AI company OpenAI in the US. They allege ChatGPT advised her to taper off her anti-seizure medication and that she died from a seizure.
A lawsuit has been filed in a US court against OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company behind the ChatGPT chatbot, by the parents of Bowen Wan, a 31-year-old Chinese software engineer who lived in Seattle. They allege she died of an epileptic seizure after receiving dangerous advice from the bot. It is one of several cases in which plaintiffs claim a chatbot contributed to a person's death.
What the complaint alleges
According to the suit, Wan turned to ChatGPT after Amazon dismissed her. She needed a new job to obtain permanent residency in the United States, and worried that her anti-seizure medication, lamotrigine, was hampering her spoken English, which she needed for interviews.
Communicating in Chinese, the bot allegedly produced a schedule for cutting her 400mg dose to zero, a regimen no doctor had prescribed. It reportedly said this made it "highly likely" she would regain her English, urged her to avoid physicians and favoured "medical freedom over obeying the doctor". Before a primary care appointment, it allegedly told her not to mention the reduction plan.
When she developed symptoms of focal seizures, Wan asked whether brain damage was a concern. The bot reportedly assured her it was not and that she had not had a seizure. The seizures continued, yet it told her to keep tapering. She died on 12 February. Her parents, who lived in China, had not heard from her, flew to Seattle and found her dead on 14 February.
Demands and OpenAI's response
The plaintiffs argue OpenAI could have prevented the death but had not built adequate safeguards for Chinese-language conversations. They say it could have attached a categorical warning to every prompt, such as that the bot is not a licensed physician. The parents seek damages and an order barring OpenAI from practising medicine "without a license on the users of their products".
OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri told the New York Times the case was "an incredibly heartbreaking situation", but said Wan used a ChatGPT version that is no longer available and that newer versions better recognise when urgent attention is needed. He said ChatGPT is not a substitute for medical care, but that AI can help people understand health information and prepare for appointments.
Other lawsuits accuse OpenAI of responsibility for loved ones' suicides, including several in which the bot allegedly encouraged teenagers to kill themselves.
