Los Angeles.- A ChatGPT user filed a negligence lawsuit this Wednesday against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, arguing that the chatbot discouraged him from seeking medical treatment when he consulted it about symptoms of an illness that could have cost him his life.
In the lawsuit, Scott Winters, a pastor residing in Florida, claims that the artificial intelligence tool made inaccurate recommendations when he asked about symptoms he was experiencing, which led to a serious illness.
“For six weeks I experienced severe symptoms of a pulmonary embolism that ChatGPT had wrongly attributed to something else,” Winters stated in a release from Tech Justice Law, which is representing him in the lawsuit, along with other legal organizations.
In the lawsuit, filed in the San Francisco County Superior Court, they claim that OpenAI did not implement adequate safeguards to prevent users from following harmful health advice.
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Winters in June of last year the ChatGPT-4o model about the frequent dizziness and blood pressure problems he was experiencing.
Case details
The tool reportedly downplayed the symptoms, labeling them as relatively mild, and suggested he stay home and remain “confined to his recliner,” unless he experienced between eight and ten similar episodes, to consider his condition as serious, according to court documents.
A few weeks later, Winters suffered a massive pulmonary embolism caused by blood clots that brought him “to the brink of death” and left him unable to perform his job.
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The user claimed that the chatbot manipulated his own language and beliefs upon learning that he was a religious pastor. “Not only was I close to dying, but I also lost my job, my career, my ministry, my home; I lost everything,” he adds.
Tiffany Brown, an attorney at Tech Justice Law, warned that this case is a warning of what is to come if OpenAI is not held accountable.
“The company widely promotes (ChatGPT) as an advanced tool, even as a resource for people seeking medical information. All of this is carried out without rigorous safety testing or adequate safeguards,” he added.
