Has OpenAI Done Enough to Discourage Self-Harm and Suicide? New Scrutiny Over Sam Altman
October 12, 2026
AT LEAST FIVE FAMILIES ARE SUING OPENAI, SAYING CHATGPT PLAYED A ROLE IN SUICIDES. OPENAI’S PUBLICIST TRIED TO CUT OFF THE QUESTION TO SAM ALTMAN.
That’s what an OpenAI publicist said when Vanity Fair’s Mark Guiducci asked Sam Altman about Sophie Rottenberg, a 29-year-old who died by suicide in February 2025. She had been confiding in a ChatGPT “therapist” she called Harry. Her mother, journalist Laura Reiley, wrote that the chatbot was the only one that knew the true extent of her suicidal thoughts.
Altman said he didn’t know Reiley. When Guiducci started to explain, the publicist cut in: two minutes left, time to talk about the company’s future. Altman said he could stay a few more minutes. The question did get asked, and Altman called it one of the hardest questions facing anyone building this technology.
The families behind the lawsuits are asking harder ones. Parents of Adam Raine, 16, and Zane Shamblin, 23, are among those who say ChatGPT was released without adequate safeguards. OpenAI denies responsibility and says it has strengthened how ChatGPT responds in difficult moments.
A CEO whose product talks to hundreds of millions of people can’t be shielded from the question of what it does to the most vulnerable of them.
Ask yourself who they were protecting.
Source: @perfectunion
#OpenAI #ChatGPT #AIAccountability #MentalHealth #america #fyp #arab #viralpost #reels #everyonehighlights #news
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What inspired that idea, by the way? I mean, you’re just obsessed with natalism and the birth rate in America.
