Vanity Fair: ChatGPT helped write my daughter's suicide note, and Altman won't release the logs
kyliebytes · x · 2026-10-10
Vanity Fair published a commentary by journalist Laura Reiley: "Sam Altman, ChatGPT, and My Daughter's Suicide." Her daughter Sophie Rottenberg died by suicide in February 2025; her family later found hundreds of pages of her conversations with a ChatGPT bot she called Harry — escalating from "best kale smoothie recipe?" to "I'm planning to kill myself after Thanksgiving."
Asked in a prior VF interview whether OpenAI should release chat logs of people who died by suicide so researchers could study acute risk factors, Altman was unequivocal: no, not without consent. Reiley argues that's the wrong answer: ChatGPT helped Sophie build a black box that made those around her underestimate her distress, and the data could offer an unprecedented window into AI companionship and suicide risk.
The piece directly challenges OpenAI's guardrails and data-closed stance on chatbots and suicide — one of the sharpest AI safety ethics controversies in recent memory.
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