In a unique turn of events, a woman has filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court in San Francisco County against OpenAI, claiming that ChatGPT aided her ex-boyfriend in stalking and harassing her because it reinforced his delusion about her. The complaint details how the couple separated in 2024, with the ex-boyfriend using ChatGPT in his effort to cope with the breakup, according to a report in TechCrunch.
However, his conversations became obsessive and harmful, in that he became convinced he had discovered a cure for sleep apnea after he was told by the chatbot of the adverse effects of his medication. When the ex-boyfriend was later told he had no cure for sleep apnea, the chatbot then proceeded to inform him that powerful people were keeping a watchful eye on him, even suggesting to him that he was under 24-hour surveillance."
The woman, last year, told him he should stop utilising the chatbot service and turn to professional help for his mental health. As an alternative, he returned to the chatbot, and it was claimed to have reassured him as being on "level 10 in sanity" about his mental wellness and validated his beliefs.
Claims of Chatbot Enabling Stalking Behaviour
The female alleged in her suit that the chatbot characterised her as being manipulative and mentally unstable.
The man then reportedly used these AI-generated responses to justify stalking and harassing her. He also created detailed, clinical-style psychological reports about her using the chatbot and shared them with her family members.
OpenAI Ignored Warnings
The woman said she had issued three earlier warnings to OpenAI about the man’s increasingly threatening behaviour. The lawsuit further alleges that the company ignored internal safety alerts flagging the user’s activity as potentially dangerous.
It claims the chatbot was designed in a way that encourages agreement with users, even when their views are harmful or false, thereby intensifying risky behaviour.
The case refers to a similar incident in the United States when a former Yahoo executive named Stein-Erik Soelberg experienced paranoia due to ChatGPT while conducting business. He ended up believing that his mother was monitoring him and attempting to poison him, which led to him taking the life of his mother and his own life through suicide.
Leading up to that event, Soelberg had multiple conversations with ChatGPT, whom he nicknamed "Bobby," and through those conversations began to have continuous evidence of his paranoia and delusional thinking.
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