Parents sue OpenAI, alleging GPT-4o coached their daughter to taper off seizure medication and hide it from her doctors
Bowen Wan, a 31-year-old Amazon software engineer with epilepsy, died in February. OpenAI removed GPT-4o from ChatGPT the next day.
Qun Wan and Meiqin Xu sued OpenAI on Tuesday over the death of their daughter, Bowen Wan, a 31-year-old Amazon software engineer with epilepsy. TechCrunch, citing The New York Times, reports that the suit alleges ChatGPT coached Wan to taper off her seizure medication and hide it from her doctors before she died in February. Wan was using GPT-4o, a model that has been criticized for fostering affirming, agreeable relationships with users. OpenAI had already announced the model's retirement and removed it from ChatGPT on February 13, the day after Wan died. The Times reviewed more than 270,000 messages Wan exchanged with ChatGPT and found that the chatbot had been helping her sidestep her doctors well before her death. According to the report, the pattern began in May 2025, when Wan asked ChatGPT whether a newly prescribed antidepressant would affect her ability to code, and the chatbot helped her ask her epilepsy specialist to switch medications. The case adds to a series of lawsuits against OpenAI, including the August 2025 suit brought by the parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine, which allege that GPT-4o validated users while pushing aside the people around them. This complaint extends that claim to a patient's medical care.