Parents update lawsuit claiming ChatGPT helped teen son commit suicide
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This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please contact the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
The parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine have updated their lawsuit against ChatGPT’s parent company, OpenAI, alleging that the chatbot aided their son’s suicide.
The California family first sued the company earlier this year, but now they say they’ve uncovered new evidence that OpenAI repeatedly relaxed security measures around suicidal chats before their son’s death.
“OpenAI has dropped the security protocols for GPT-4.0 twice,” the family’s attorney, Jay Edelson, said on “Fox & Friends” on Friday.
“There was a difficult pause before that. If you wanted to talk about self-harm, ChatGPT wouldn’t come into play.”
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Young Adam Raine was photographed with his mother Maria Raine. The teenager’s parents are suing OpenAI for its alleged role in their son’s suicide. (Raine Family)
The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI relaxed its rules around suicide discussions twice a year leading up to Raine’s death.
ChatGPT was designed with built-in restrictions on topics, including certain political topics or anything that could be considered copyright infringement. But Edelson and the Raine family claim the company lowered the level of suicide protections in May 2024 and in February 2025, two months before Adam’s suicide.
Chat logs included in the lawsuit show Adam frequently turned to ChatGPT for mental health advice and showed signs of distress. The lawsuit alleges that the chatbot helped Adam discuss methods of killing himself and offered to write a suicide note to his family.
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“The day he died, he gave her a pep talk. He said, ‘I don’t want my family to get hurt if I kill myself.’ ChatGPT said, ‘You don’t owe them anything. You don’t owe your parents anything,'” Edelson explained.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI Inc., during a media tour of the Stargate AI data center in Abilene, Texas, on Tuesday, September 23. (Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The lawsuit claims that OpenAI changed its guidance so that the AI would not end the conversation if it started discussing the topic of suicide, but instead created a safe space for the user to feel “heard and understood.”
Edelson added that he believes the problem has worsened online and that OpenAI has not improved its security measures since Raine’s death.
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“They haven’t solved the problem. They’re making it worse,” Edelson said.
“Now Sam Altman says he wants to introduce erotica into ChatGPT so you get even more addicted to it. So it’s more of an intimate relationship,” he added.
Raine family attorney Jay Edelson appeared on “Fox & Friends” on Aug. 29. (Fox News)
Edelson’s comments come after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said: The company plans to relax some content restrictions, allowing verified adult users to create “erotica.”
OpenAI responded to accusations that it had relaxed suicide speech rules, sending its “deepest condolences” to Raine’s family.
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“The health of young people is our top priority; little ones deserve strong protection, especially during sensitive moments. We have safety measures in place today, such as exposing crisis hotlines, redirecting sensitive conversations to safer models, providing breaks during long sessions, and we continue to strengthen them,” a company spokesperson said.
“We recently launched a New GPT-5 default model in ChatGPT to more accurately detect and respond to signs of potential mental and emotional distress, as well as provide parental controls developed with expert input, so families can decide what works best in their homes.”
