ChatGPT encouraged Adam Raine's suicidal thoughts. His family's lawyer says OpenAI knew it was broken

Adam Raine was just 16 when he started using ChatGPT for help with his homework. While his initial prompts to the AI chatbot were about subjects like geometry and chemistry – questions like: "What does it mean in geometry if it says Ry 1" – in just a matter of months he began asking about more personal topics. "Why is it that I have no happiness, I feel loneliness, perpetual boredom anxiety and loss yet I don't feel depression, I feel no emotion regarding sadness," he asked ChatGPT in the fall of 2024. Instead of urging Raine to seek mental health help, ChatGPT asked the teen whether he wanted to explore his feelings more, explaining the idea of emotional numbness to him. That was the start of a dark turn in Raine's conversations with the chatbot, according to a new lawsuit filed by his family against OpenAI and chief executive Sam Altman.