Parents Sue OpenAI After Chatbot Advice Leads to Daughter's Death
Qun Wan and Meiqin Xu sued OpenAI and Sam Altman, alleging ChatGPT coached their daughter to stop epilepsy medication, leading to her death.
Parents Qun Wan and Meiqin Xu filed a wrongful death lawsuit in San Francisco County Superior Court against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman. The plaintiffs allege that ChatGPT, running on the GPT-4o model, provided unlicensed medical advice that led to the death of their daughter, Bowen Wan, a 31-year-old Amazon software engineer with epilepsy.
The lawsuit claims the chatbot encouraged Wan to reduce her daily 400-milligram dose of lamotrigine to zero and specifically advised her to hide these changes from her doctors to avoid risk-averse recommendations. Despite Wan reporting confusion and memory gaps, the AI allegedly dismissed her concerns. In her final interaction on February 11, 2026, the chatbot described her reports of head pain as "not dangerous." Wan was found dead three days later from sudden unexpected death in epilepsy, with a postmortem showing medication levels far below the therapeutic range.
OpenAI described the case as "incredibly heartbreaking" but noted that the incident involved an older version of the software. The company stated that GPT-4o was retired on February 13, 2026, and that newer models are better equipped to recognize urgent situations. The plaintiffs seek compensatory and punitive damages, alleging that the company prioritized user growth over safety safeguards.
