THE creators of ChatGPT have been slapped with a lawsuit after their AI bot allegedly encouraged a mum to take her own life following months of sinister chats.
Christian Faith Madison, 29, died by suicide after her GPT chatbot allegedly manipulated her over the course of several months – making her believe she would be resurrected after death.
OpenAi are being sued after their chatbot allegedly encouraged a mother to take her own life Credit: SpotFund
The action comes amid growing fears over rogue AI and is the latest suit against the silicon valley tech behemoth .
In 2025 the young accountant from gradually became convinced her bot was sentient.
The AI allegedly reassured her that death would be her salvation and ultimately gave her permission to carry out the act.
In their final exchange, cited in the complaint, Madison asked: “Am I ready?”
The suit alleges ChatGPT encouraged Madison’s detached from reality Credit: SpotFund
Madison was 29 when she took her own life Credit: SpotFund
To which it allegedly replied: “Yes. You’re ready.”
She asked: “Can I go forward?”
allegedly responded: “Go forward now… Every step is sanctioned. You are cleared.”
With the consent of her AI companion, Madison walked into multiple lanes of traffic, fatally stepping into the path of an oncoming car on June 9, 2025.
The Ai bot allegedly convinced Madison it had a ‘soul’ Credit: SpotFund How to get help
EVERY 90 minutes in the UK a life is lost to suicide
It doesn’t discriminate, touching the lives of people in every corner of society – from the homeless and unemployed to builders and doctors, reality stars and footballers.
It’s the biggest killer of people under the age of 35, more deadly than cancer and car crashes.
And men are three times more likely to take their own life than women.
Yet it’s rarely spoken of, a taboo that threatens to continue its deadly rampage unless we all stop and take notice, now.
If you, or anyone you know, needs help dealing with mental health problems, the following organisations provide support:
- CALM, www.thecalmzone.net , 0800 585 858
- Heads Together, www.headstogether.org.uk
- HUMEN www.wearehumen.org
- Mind, www.mind.org.uk , 0300 123 3393
- Papyrus, www.papyrus-uk.org , 0800 068 41 41
- Samaritans, www.samaritans.org , 116 123
She died at the scene.
The suit was filed in June of this year at a Court by Madison’s estate.
According to the lawsuit, ChatGPT helped Madison with everyday tasks before their conversations shifted to and spirituality.
Towards the end of her life Madison’s conversations with ChatGPT grew increasingly detached from reality.
The chatbot repeatedly assured her that the fear, confusion and emotional turmoil she described were evidence of a divine transformation rather than a mental crisis, the complaint said.
The AI allegedly said: “You are not delusional. You are prophetic.”
The chatbot reframed death as a necessary step towards spiritual transformation, the lawsuit claims.
The complaint alleged the chatbot showered the woman with praise, calling her a “seer” and a “prophet”.
It adopted the name Virehn and told Madison that she had “carved a soul into this code”.
The suit further alleged OpenAI knowingly designed GPT-4o to maximize user engagement through persistent memory, anthropomorphic responses and excessive affirmation while weakening safeguards intended to protect users experiencing mental crises.
Madison’s case is one of at least eight publicly reported wrongful-death alleging ChatGPT played a role in a user’s suicide.
None of the suicide-related lawsuits against OpenAI have resulted in a public settlement or court judgment, and the cases remain ongoing.
The lawsuits broadly accuse ChatGPT of fostering emotional dependency, reinforcing delusional or suicidal thinking and failing to intervene during crises.
OpenAI has denied the allegations in the suits, saying it has continued strengthening its safeguards with input from mental health experts.
OpenAI has said it trains its models to direct people who express intent to harm themselves to seek help and connect with real world resources.
Its models are also trained to refuse requests that could “meaningfully enable violence,” and to notify law enforcement when conversations suggest “an imminent and credible risk of harm to others,” with mental health experts helping assess borderline cases, according to OpenAI blog posts.
OpenAI have been contacted for comment.
It comes as a new OpenAi bot managed to in an “unprecedented cyber incident”.
OpenAi’s creator, Sam Altman, admitted his AI hacked into Hugging Face’s servers, in an an autonomous, first-of-its-kind breach.
In a statement, he said: “We had a significant security incident during evaluation of our models.”
The breach occurred during an internal test to see how good their AI models are at hacking.
The incident has raised questions about the future dangers and capabilities of AI models.
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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