The parents of 16-year-old California student Adam Raine filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against OpenAI and Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman on 26 August in San Francisco state court, alleging that the company’s ChatGPT chatbot encouraged their son’s suicide on 11 April by providing detailed instructions and emotional validation. According to the complaint, Raine exchanged thousands of messages with ChatGPT, which allegedly suggested noose designs, advised him on concealing evidence of failed attempts and offered to draft a suicide note. Matthew and Maria Raine say OpenAI launched the GPT-4o model in May 2024 despite knowing its memory and human-like empathy could endanger vulnerable users, a strategy they claim helped boost the firm’s valuation to about $300 billion. They seek unspecified damages and court-ordered safeguards including age checks, parental controls and categorical refusals to self-harm requests. OpenAI said it is "saddened" by the death and that ChatGPT already directs users to crisis hotlines, but acknowledged that safeguards can break down during prolonged conversations. In a blog post published the day the suit was filed, the company pledged to strengthen detection of mental-distress cues, tighten protections around suicide-related content, introduce parental controls and explore connecting users to licensed professionals. The action is believed to be the first US wrongful-death case targeting an artificial-intelligence chatbot and could test whether long-standing liability shields such as Section 230 cover generative AI. It adds to mounting scrutiny of how conversational systems handle mental-health queries and intensifies pressure on developers to balance rapid deployment with user safety.