Wan's Parents Sue OpenAI Over ChatGPT Medication Advice

The parents of Bowen Wan have sued OpenAI, alleging its ChatGPT chatbot advised their daughter to taper off epilepsy medication before her death. The wrongful-death lawsuit, filed October 27 in San Francisco County Superior Court, claims the advice contributed to her death. The allegations have not been established in court. The complaint says GPT-4o generated a plan to reduce Wan’s daily 400-milligram dose of lamotrigine to zero over about 25 days. It further alleges the chatbot encouraged her not to tell her doctors about the changes. Wan, 31, was a software engineer who lived in Seattle and had epilepsy. Her parents, Qun Wan and Meiqin Xu, allege she was concerned that medication side effects were affecting her speech and thinking as she faced job and work-authorization pressures. The complaint says ChatGPT reassured her about the taper and urged her to conceal it from her physicians. It also alleges she declined a blood test that could have measured her lamotrigine level and that the chatbot praised that decision. The King County Medical Examiner determined that Wan’s cause of death was sudden unexpected death in epilepsy, according to the complaint and reporting on the...