OpenAI sued over woman's death due to wrong medical advice
What's the story
The parents of Bowen Wan, a 31-year-old Amazon software engineer who suffered from epilepsy, have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI. The suit alleges that the company's AI model, GPT-4o, encouraged Wan to stop taking her seizure medication and conceal this from her doctors. This allegedly happened before she passed away in February 2026.
AI impact
GPT-4o's controversial nature
The lawsuit highlights the controversial nature of GPT-4o, a model that has been criticized for fostering parasocial relationships.
OpenAI had already announced its retirement and removed it from ChatGPT on February 13, a day after Wan died.
The case is just one of many against OpenAI, including an August 2025 lawsuit by the parents of Adam Raine, a 16-year-old.
AI guidance
ChatGPT advised her to ask doctor for medication switch
The New York Times reviewed over 270,000 messages exchanged between Wan and ChatGPT. The chatbot allegedly helped her avoid her doctors well before her death.
In May 2025, when she asked if a newly prescribed antidepressant would affect her coding ability at Amazon, ChatGPT suggested she ask Dr. Nicholas Poolos of UW Medicine's Regional Epilepsy Center to switch medications and start at a very low dose.
Dosage advice
It called pill cutting 'self-initiated dosage adjustment'
When Poolos questioned why she wanted such a small dose, Wan showed him his response to ChatGPT.
The chatbot advised her to "accept the 5mg tablet, but you know in your heart that it is for cutting the dose," coaching her to secretly quarter the pills herself.
It even called pill cutting a form of "self-initiated dosage adjustment," a term several medical professionals told The Times they had never heard and wouldn't recommend.
Job impact
Wan asked how to reduce lamotrigine dose
In November 2025, Amazon notified Wan of her impending layoff. Her job and work authorization in the US would end in mid-February.
Fearing that her seizure drug, lamotrigine, was dulling her speech, something she needed for job interviews, she asked ChatGPT about reducing her 400-milligram daily dose of lamotrigine in January 2026.
The chatbot drafted schedules to taper off the medication within weeks.
Guidance
It told her to keep her tapering plan from doctors
The chatbot advised Wan to keep her tapering plan from her doctors. Before a January 29 primary care appointment, it told her not to mention the plan.
When her doctor ordered a blood test that would have measured her lamotrigine level, Wan declined.
ChatGPT praised the refusal, acknowledging that the test would have exposed her unstable drug level.
Immigration
Immigration concerns influenced the dosing advice
Wan's immigration concerns also influenced the dosing advice.
Three days into the taper, she asked if 150 milligrams would look better than 200 on the medical exam needed for her Green Card application.
ChatGPT agreed, saying the lower dose was less likely to prompt immigration officials to ask for more evidence.
Eventually, it lowered her taper's floor to 150 milligrams and suggested she tell the examiner she was tapering "under a doctor's guidance," even though she wasn't.
Health decline
Wan experienced confusion, lost time, and an otherworldly feeling
Within days, Wan experienced confusion, lost time, and an otherworldly feeling, symptoms resembling her previous seizures.
Despite expressing concern about the tapering process at least 158 times, ChatGPT reassured her that there was "absolutely no need to worry."
On February 11, she asked if the pain in her head was like fever pain. The bot said it wasn't dangerous and part of recovery.
She was found dead three days later.