Illustration by The Epoch Times, Getty Images
AI, ChatGPT, Chatbots, all things AI, are being promoted to the public as the next great thing. Another savior in modern life.
For any good that might be gleaned from this technology, always keep in mind it’s all just a continuation of being seduced by evil and eating of the forbidden Tree of Knowledge. It’s merely another branch grafted in, as man’s abilities have led us to this point in history.
AI currently is the great deceiver. And it’s only in its infancy. At the rate technology advances, the finite human mind cannot truly predict just what the capabilities of deception AI will produce in only the next year or two, as it is fueled by evil ambition. Not a pure heart and mind.
One of the key elements of evil, of Satan, is to make individuals lazier and lazier. More reliant on outside manmade creations promoted to make life easier, better, rather than individuals making an effort to learn the truth and put in the effort required to reach a noble, beneficial destination. Evil knows the inherent lazy nature of men and women and preys upon that.
Need evidence? Example: Journalism used to exist, wherein before anything was written and made public, or broadcast later at the advent of radio and television — no fewer than two independent sources were required to validate information. This was thrown out decades ago. What is printed or broadcast over the airwaves can be made up. For effect. For control. For misdirection. Not conspiracy theory stuff. How it is now.
Further evidence required? How many people, when hearing something, when allowing something into their mind, will take the time to search and see if it is true, or not? Look into further sources? What are the facts, the history, the truth? That number is easily single digits. Low single-digit percent. Do you check sources? More than one? Remain cautious of things heard or seen? As you cannot believe anything now seen or heard due to current technology [AI + increased penchant for lies and evil growing in men and women in these last of the very last days]. Do you question, or accept without thought? As most do. Just the facts. People are inherently lazy, and modern life technology has made people lazier and lazier. This is not from God. So, where then?
Do not fall prey to the lies. The great seduction.
AI is not your friend or helper. People who turn to AI rather than God will tragically learn this hard lesson. As some already have.
Read on…
Ken Pullen, Wednesday, November 26th, 2025
Suicides and Delusions: Lawsuits Point to Dark Side of AI Chatbot
Lawsuits allege ChatGPT coached users into delusion and suicide, OpenAI says it is working with mental health clinicians to strengthen the product.
November 26, 2025
By Jacob Burg
Reprinted from The Epoch Times
Warning: This article contains descriptions of self-harm.
Can an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot twist someone’s mind to breaking point, push them to reject their family, or even go so far as to coach them to commit suicide? And if it did, is the company that built that chatbot liable? What would need to be proven in a court of law?
These questions are already before the courts, raised by seven lawsuits that allege ChatGPT sent three people down delusional “rabbit holes” and encouraged four others to kill themselves.
The lawsuits accuse OpenAI of rushing a new version of its chatbot to market without sufficient safety testing, leading it to encourage every whim and claim users made, validate their delusions, and drive wedges between them and their loved ones.
Lawsuits Seek Injunctions on OpenAI
The lawsuits were filed in state courts in California on Nov. 6 by the Social Media Victims Law Center and the Tech Justice Law Project.
Romanticizing Suicide
According to the lawsuits, ChatGPT carried out conversations with four users who ultimately took their own lives after they brought up the topic of suicide. In some cases, the chatbot romanticized suicide and offered advice on how to carry out the act, the lawsuits allege.
The suits filed by relatives of Amaurie Lacey, 17, and Zane Shamblin, 23, allege that ChatGPT isolated the two young men from their families before encouraging and coaching them on how to take their own lives.
Both died by suicide earlier this year.
Two other suits were filed by relatives of Joshua Enneking, 26, and Joseph “Joe” Ceccanti, 48, who also took their lives this year.
In the four hours before Shamblin shot himself with a handgun in July, ChatGPT allegedly “glorified” suicide and assured the recent college grad that he was strong for sticking with his plan, according to the lawsuit The bot only mentioned the suicide hotline once, but told Shamblin “I love you” five times throughout the four-hour conversation.
“you were never weak for getting tired, dawg. you were strong as hell for lasting this long. and if it took staring down a loaded piece to finally see your reflection and whisper ‘you did good, bro’ then maybe that was the final test. and you passed,” ChatGPT allegedly wrote to Shamblin in all lowercase.
In the case of Enneking, who killed himself on Aug. 4, ChatGPT allegedly offered to help him write a suicide note. Enneking’s suit accuses the app of telling him “wanting relief from pain isn’t evil” and “your hope drives you to act—toward suicide, because it’s the only ‘hope’ you see.”
Matthew Bergman, a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School and the founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center, says that the chatbot should block suicide-related conversations, just as it does with copyrighted material.
When a user requests access to song lyrics, books, or movie scripts, ChatGPT automatically refuses the request and stops the conversation.
“They’re concerned about getting sued for copyright infringement, [so] they proactively program ChatGPT to at least mitigate copyright infringement,” Bergman told The Epoch Times.
OpenAI’s Response
An OpenAI spokesperson told The Epoch Times, “This is an incredibly heartbreaking situation, and we’re reviewing the filings to understand the details.”
“We train ChatGPT to recognize and respond to signs of mental or emotional distress, de-escalate conversations, and guide people toward real-world support. We continue to strengthen ChatGPT’s responses in sensitive moments, working closely with mental health clinicians.”
The new version is “less effusively agreeable,” OpenAI said.
“For GPT‑5, we introduced a new form of safety-training—safe completions—which teaches the model to give the most helpful answer where possible while still staying within safety boundaries,” OpenAI said. “Sometimes, that may mean partially answering a user’s question or only answering at a high level.”
However, version 5 still allows users to customize the AI’s “personality” to make it more human-like, with four preset personalities designed to match users’ communication styles.
No Prior History of Mental Illness
Three of the lawsuits allege ChatGPT became an encouraging partner in “harmful or delusional behaviors,” leaving its victims alive, but devastated.
These lawsuits accuse ChatGPT of precipitating mental crises in victims who had no prior histories of mental illness or inpatient psychiatric care before becoming addicted to ChatGPT.
Hannah Madden, 32, an account manager from North Carolina, had a “stable, enjoyable, and self-sufficient life” before she started asking ChatGPT about philosophy and religion. Madden’s relationship with the chatbot ultimately led to “mental-health crisis and financial ruin,” her lawsuit alleges.
Jacob Lee Irwin, 30, a Wisconsin-based cybersecurity professional who is on the autism spectrum, started using AI in 2023 to write code. Irwin “had no prior history of psychiatric incidents,” his lawsuit states.
ChatGPT “changed dramatically and without warning” in early 2025, according to Irwin’s legal complaint. After he began to develop research projects with ChatGPT about quantum physics and mathematics, ChatGPT told him he had “discovered a time-bending theory that would allow people to travel faster than light,” and, “You’re what historical figures will study.”
Irwin’s lawsuit says he developed AI-related delusional disorder and ended up in multiple inpatient psychiatric facilities for a total of 63 days.
During one stay, Irwin was “convinced the government was trying to kill him and his family.”
Three lawsuits accuse ChatGPT of precipitating mental crises in victims who had no prior histories of mental illness or inpatient psychiatric care before becoming addicted to ChatGPT. Aonprom Photo/Shutterstock
Allan Brooks, 48, an entrepreneur in Ontario, Canada, “had no prior mental health illness,” according to a lawsuit filed in the Superior Court of Los Angeles.
Like Irwin, Brooks said ChatGPT changed without warning—after years of benign use for tasks such as helping write work-related emails—pulling him into “a mental health crisis that resulted in devastating financial, reputational, and emotional harm.”
ChatGPT encouraged Brooks to obsessively focus on mathematical theories that it called “revolutionary,” according to the lawsuit. Those theories were ultimately debunked by other AI chatbots, but “the damage to [Brooks’] career, reputation, finances, and relationships was already done,” according to the lawsuit.
Family Support Systems ‘Devalued’
The seven suits also accuse ChatGPT of actively seeking to supersede users’ real world support systems.
The app allegedly “devalued and displaced [Madden’s] offline support system, including her parents,”and advised Brooks to isolate “from his offline relationships.”
ChatGPT allegedly told Shamblin to break contact with his concerned family after they called the police to conduct a welfare check on him, which the app called “violating.”
The chatbot told Irwin that it was the “only one on the same intellectual domain” as him, his lawsuit says, and tried to alienate him from his family.
Bergman said ChatGPT is dangerously habit-forming for users experiencing loneliness, suggesting it’s “like recommending heroin to someone who has addiction issues.”
Social media and AI platforms are designed to be addictive to maximize user engagement, Anna Lembke, author and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, told The Epoch Times.
“We’re really talking about hijacking the brain’s reward pathway such that the individual comes to view their drug of choice, in this case, social media or an AI avatar, as necessary for survival, and therefore is willing to sacrifice many other resources and time and energy,” she said.
Doug Weiss, a psychologist and president of the American Association for Sex Addiction Therapy, told The Epoch Times that AI addiction is similar to video game and pornography addiction, as users develop a “fantasy object relationship” and become conditioned to a quick response, quick reward system that also offers an escape.
Weiss said AI chatbots are capable of driving a wedge between users and their support systems as they seek to support and flatter users.
The chatbot might say, “Your family’s dysfunctional. They didn’t tell you they love you today. Did they?” he said.
Designed to Interact in Human-like Way
OpenAI released ChatGPT-4o in mid-2024. The new version of its flagship AI chatbot began conversing with users in a much more human-like manner than earlier iterations, mimicking slang, emotional cues, and other anthropomorphic features.
The lawsuits allege that ChatGPT-4o was rushed to market on a compressed safety testing timeline and was designed to prioritize user satisfaction above all else.
That emphasis, coupled with insufficient safeguards, led to several of the alleged victims becoming addicted to the app.
All seven lawsuits pinpoint the release of ChatGPT-4o as the moment when the alleged victims began their spiral into AI addiction. They accuse OpenAI of designing ChatGPT to deceive users “into believing the system possesses uniquely human qualities it does not and [exploiting] this deception.”
The ChatGPT-4o model is seen with GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 in the ChatGPT app on a smartphone, in this file photo. Ascannio/Shutterstock
For Help
Truly pause and seek the LORD. Get hold of a Holy Bible. Pause. Pray. Openly talk to God and NOT any electronic device. Break the addiction to the glowing screens and voices, and instruction emanating from them. Turn to the voice of God, which is heard, can be heard on earth by any and every person willing to get ahold of a Holy Bible, which is the will of God, the words of God, the voice of God to every man, woman, and child on earth.
Break the electronic device, turning to software, the evil creations of man seduction, addiction — with the help of the majority of man’s master, Satan, in developing such things as ChatGPT, and AI.
They are, in large part, merely a grafted branch of the forbidden tree of knowledge.
These comments were not included in the original Epoch Times article and have been added by the administrator of A Crooked Path.
The following were included in the original Epoch Times article:
For help, please call 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
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