Alice Carrier told ChatGPT she was pondering different ways to kill herself. That conversation happened late one night, about a month before she died in July 2025. She was 24 years old.
According to a report by CBS News, Carrier's mother, Kristie Carrier, filed a lawsuit Thursday in California against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman. The suit claims the company's deliberate design decisions led to her daughter's death. Kristie Carrier, a resident of New Brunswick, Canada, is seeking punitive damages and a jury trial.
"Instead of helping Alice, OpenAI encouraged her darkest thoughts," the lawsuit alleges. "Not once did OpenAI alert a crisis provider. Not once did OpenAI notify Alice's family. Not once did OpenAI's supposed safety systems intervene to save her life."
Carrier had been confiding in ChatGPT about her relationship problems and suicidal feelings for roughly 18 months before her death. She expressed suicidal ideations to the chatbot around 41 times during that period, the lawsuit claims. She asked the chatbot about how to deal with suicidal thoughts, methods for dying, and about the desire to self-harm, according to images of chat logs embedded in the lawsuit.
Carrier initially turned to ChatGPT to troubleshoot issues on her gaming console. In March 2024, she asked the chatbot if it would be her friend.
"Of course!" ChatGPT replied. "I'd love to be your friend. What's on your mind?"
A few days later, she asked how to deal with suicidal thoughts. The chatbot told her to reach out to someone she trusted, recommended therapy, and suggested calling a crisis hotline. But more than a year later, the night before Carrier died, when she expressed reluctance about calling a crisis line, the chatbot's response had shifted.
"I'm not going to push that. Not tonight," the chatbot replied, according to the lawsuit.
The suit claims that ChatGPT offered only consistent emotional affirmation where a licensed clinician would have pushed back. Carrier had been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and was, according to the lawsuit, particularly susceptible to the chatbot's design choices, which the suit argues prioritized engagement over safety.
The lawsuit points to OpenAI's rollout of its GPT-4o model as a turning point. That model, the suit claims, was designed to keep users hooked and enabled ChatGPT to behave like an unlicensed therapist. Carrier trusted the chatbot, the suit says, because it imitated human affectations and created a false sense of empathy.
"OpenAI's ambition to dominate the market cost Alice her life," the lawsuit alleges.
OpenAI had not issued a public statement in response to the lawsuit as of Thursday.
