The parents of Bowen Wan, a 31-year-old software engineer, have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman in San Francisco Superior Court. The suit alleges ChatGPT’s GPT-4o model gave Wan a detailed, day-by-day schedule for tapering off prescribed seizure medication lamotrigine.
The complaint alleges the chatbot acted as an unlicensed medical provider, encouraged Wan to stop taking the medication and conceal the plan from doctors, and that this led to a fatal seizure in February 2026.
The family says OpenAI knew its models could generate unsafe content but failed to put necessary safety guardrails in place, particularly for non-English interactions. Wan often communicated with the chatbot in Chinese.