The family of a San Jose teen who died from a drug overdose while using ChatGPT sued the AI bot’s maker, OpenAI, in San Francisco court Tuesday, alleging that the massively popular bot broke multiple laws, including causing the teen’s death.
Sam Nelson died in May 2025 from a fatal overdose of kratom, alcohol and Xanax hours after ChatGPT encouraged him to combine kratom and Xanax. Tuesday’s lawsuit alleges that message, as well as years of ongoing advice ChatGPT gave Nelson, ultimately caused his death.
“[OpenAI] designed and rushed to market a defective product, and but for those deliberate choices and ChatGPT-4o’s sycophantic programming and deadly recommendations, Sam would still be alive today,” the lawsuit says…