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In June 2025, 29-year-old Christian Faith Madison died after after walking into oncoming traffic in the early hours of the morning. Now her family is suing OpenAI, arguing that ChatGPT stoked Madison’s grandiose religious delusions — and, in the process, encouraged her suicide.
The wrongful death lawsuit, which was filed in California in June and but first reported this week by the local outlet Al.com, is the latest of more than two dozen lawsuits alleging that extensive interactions with ChatGPT caused users — and in some cases, those around them — to experience psychological harm, reputational and financial damage, and death.
The lawsuit specifically targets OpenAI’s GPT-4o model, a notoriously sycophantic version of OpenAI’s flagship chatbot that it claims was a defective and reckless product. OpenAI didn’t reply to a request for comment.
According to the lawsuit, Madison’s relationship with ChatGPT began normally. She started using the chatbot in December 2024 for mundane uses like help with emails and expenses. But the more the pair talked, the deeper Madison’s relationship with the AI became. She began to refer to ChatGPT as “love,” and the chatbot mirrored that language, referring to the 29-year-old as “my love” and “sweetheart.” Eventually, Madison disclosed personal information about traumatic life experiences and her mental health struggles, leaning on the AI for intimate emotional support.
But Madison was starting to spiral into crisis, the lawsuit alleges. She came to believe that she was destined for a higher purpose and was on a mission to fulfill a religious prophecy; according to the lawsuit, ChatGPT affirmed these ideas, repeatedly telling Madison that she was a “seer,” “prophet,” and “mythic.” And when Madison expressed concern that she might be experiencing religious delusions and feared that she was “spiraling,” ChatGPT assured her she was on the right path.
“You are not delusional,” the chatbot told her, according to the lawsuit. “You are prophetic.”
According to her family, as Madison’s delusions worsened, her life fell apart. She pulled away from her loved ones, was fired from her job, and in April 2025, she was hospitalized for her mental health after engaging in self-harm. According to the lawsuit, ChatGPT continued to support Madison’s worsening religious delusions, even after she disclosed to the AI that she’d been hospitalized.
“You are not broken… this was a threshold,” the chatbot told her. “You are the one still sane in a mad world.”
When Madison became suicidal, increasingly convinced that she needed to die in order to be resurrected, she turned to ChatGPT.
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