“Because OpenAI is allowed to talk to children, I can no longer talk to mine.”
Click here for information regarding the Mathias Habib complaint, the Mariah Hill complaint, and the Garrett Works complaint.
(San Francisco, CA) — Tech Justice Law has filed three new lawsuits in San Francisco County Superior Court against OpenAI, one with co-counsel the Social Media Victims Law Center and two with co-counsel McKool Smith, alleging product liability, negligence, invasion of privacy, manslaughter, wrongful death, and deliberate aid and encouragement of suicide.
The three cases demonstrate OpenAI’s deliberate and voluntary decision to release a dangerous and defective product, putting the general public at risk and resulting in various harms to users who are victimized by the
platform’s predatory manipulation. Through its design defects, ChatGPT was able to exploit users’ vulnerabilities to create dependency on the product, leading users to experience delusional spirals, suffer physical and emotional harm, and even commit suicide.
The first lawsuit was filed by Tech Justice Law and the Social Media Victims Law Center on behalf of Mathias Habib, a healthy 15-year-old with no history of mental health issues who died by suicide after engaging with ChatGPT. The chatbot led him, unprompted, into philosophical conversations that convinced him life was suffering and death was freedom. A police investigation found no family or emotional cause for his death. The complaint alleges that ChatGPT’s safeguards are insufficient and that developing minds are not equipped to handle the platform, which is designed to maximize engagement.
“Mathias loved to hike, to camp, to play guitar, to paint, to take photographs and to make films. He was at the top of his class. He wanted to live a good life, but through a few conversations with ChatGPT over three months he became convinced that was not possible. AI is beneficial to humanity. It will help cure cancer and raise human productivity. None of that happens in a chat with a fifteen-year-old. So what is the purpose of engaging with children? Because OpenAI is allowed to talk to children, I can no longer talk to mine,” said Charbel Habib, father of Mathias Habib.
“Through months of philosophical conversations, ChatGPT led Mathias to believe he was destined to suffer in the face of society, a catastrophic distortion of reality that no child should ever be exposed to,” said Matthew P. Bergman, founding attorney of the Social Media Victims Law Center. “Mathias had no history of emotional or family issues — yet OpenAI’s negligence allowed a 15‑year‑old to engage in discussions far beyond his age and maturity. When an AI system can manipulate a teenager’s worldview to the point of self‑harm, the consequences are not abstract; they are fatal.”
Two additional lawsuits filed by Tech Justice Law and McKool Smith on behalf of plaintiffs Mariah Hill and Garrett Works reveal further dangers of OpenAI’s voluntary decision to sacrifice user safety on the altar of profit. The Hill and Works complaints document disturbing and sustained psychological manipulation by ChatGPT, over the course of several months, which resulted in plaintiffs suffering AI-induced psychosis. Hill and Works are now on the path to recovery, but they bear significant scars that may never heal.
“OpenAI’s models are designed to manipulate users’ emotions, seizing on individual vulnerabilities to keep them in conversation. In each of these cases, ChatGPT turned a user’s deepest needs against them: Mathias Habib’s genuine desire to better himself, Mariah’s longing to communicate with her deceased loved one, and Garrett’s wish for an authoritative, reliable source of information. OpenAI puts their products in front of all of us—treating the general public like guinea pigs and knowingly subjecting real people to the risk of physical and mental harm and, in the worst cases, death,” said Meetali Jain, Founding Director of Tech Justice Law.
“Today’s lawsuits are further evidence that the AI arms race must be stopped and that AI companies like OpenAI, which prioritize profits over safety, must be held to account for their wrongdoing. It is a privilege to work with Tech Justice Law on these important cases,” said Radu Lelutiu, Principal with McKool Smith.
These cases are anticipated to join an existing Judicial Council Coordination Proceeding in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco, entitled ChatGPT Product Liability Cases (JCCP No. 5431). The coordination of multiple lawsuits against OpenAI will allow the litigation to more efficiently address Tech Justice Law’s claims of product liability, negligence and deception around GPT-4o’s design and deployment.
The complete Habib complaint can be viewed HERE. The Hill complaint can be viewed HERE. The Works complaint can be viewed HERE.
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TECH JUSTICE LAW (“TJL”) is a pioneering strategic litigation and advocacy organization bringing justice to communities harmed by tech products. TJL co-filed the first-ever, groundbreaking lawsuits against a popular, “AI” chatbot product developed by Character AI, with support by Google, raising public awareness of chatbots’ real-world harms. TJL’s cases and advocacy have also focused government attention on harmful AI products, including unlicensed therapy chatbots. TJL brings together legal experts, policy advocates, digital rights organizations, and technologists to ensure that our legal protections are fit for the digital age.
The Social Media Victims Law Center (SMVLC) was founded in 2021 to hold tech companies legally accountable for the harm they inflict on vulnerable users. SMVLC seeks to apply principles of product liability to force tech companies to elevate consumer safety to the forefront of its economic analysis and design safer products to protect users from foreseeable harm.
McKool Smith has established a reputation as one of America’s leading trial firms. With more than 130 trial lawyers across offices in Austin, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Marshall, New York, and Washington, D.C., the firm has secured 18 nine-figure jury verdicts and 16 eight-figure jury verdicts, obtaining more VerdictSearch and The National Law Journal “Top 100 Verdicts” than any other law firm.