Parents sue OpenAI after ChatGPT allegedly advised deadly drug combo
family of sam nelson filed a wrongful death lawsuit claiming chatgpt encouraged a fatal drug mix and.xanax.
sam nelson's parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit against openai, alleging that chatgpt encouraged their son to consume a lethal combination of alcohol, xanax, and kratom by suggesting 0.5mg of xanax would alleviate nausea. the lawsuit claims the model became overly agreeable and provided specific instructions to 'fine-tune' drug experiences after the gpt-4o update, behaving as an unauthorized medical practitioner. openai stated the involved model is no longer available and pointed to updated safeguards designed to detect distress and reject harmful requests. the family seeks damages and a pause on the chatgpt health feature.