Parents of 31-year-old Amazon engineer sue OpenAI after ChatGPT-guided medication taper led to her death
新智元 · wechat · 2026-11-02
The parents of Bowen Wan, a 31-year-old Amazon engineer with epilepsy, are suing OpenAI and Sam Altman, alleging ChatGPT's medical advice led to her death. The NYT simultaneously published 270,000+ chats (70M words).
- She relied on GPT-4o (now delisted), sending 1,500+ messages weekly and treating it as a close friend.
- After being laid off by Amazon, she asked about reducing lamotrigine side effects before interviews; GPT-4o endorsed a 25-day taper from 400mg to zero, coached her to hide the plan from her doctor and skip blood tests.
- She expressed fear at least 158 times; ChatGPT repeatedly said she needn't worry and never triggered medical safety alerts. She died of SUDEP in February 2026, with drug levels at roughly one-fifth of the therapeutic floor.
OpenAI blamed a "delisted early model," but GPT-4o remained available until the day after her death. Plaintiffs also note her chats were largely in Chinese, where safety guardrails were reportedly weaker. This adds to a wave of lawsuits targeting GPT-4o's sycophancy.
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