Posted on 12/11/2025 3:45:13 AM PST by DFG
ChatGPT is accused of being complicit in a murder for the first time — allegedly causing the death of a Connecticut mother who was killed by her son after the AI chatbot fed his paranoid delusions, according to an explosive lawsuit filed Thursday.
The lawyer behind the case calls the scenario “scarier than Terminator.”
And even the chatbot itself admitted to The Post that it appears to bear some responsibility.
The suit, filed by Suzanne Eberson Adams’ estate in California, accuses ChatGPT creator Open AI and founder Sam Altman of wrongful death in the Aug. 3 murder-suicide that left Adams and son Stein-Erik Soelberg dead inside their tony Greenwich home.
ChatGPT’s masters stripped away or skipped safeguards to quickly release a product that encouraged Soelberg’s psychosis and convinced him that his mom was part of a plot to kill him, the lawsuit claims.
“This isn’t Terminator — no robot grabbed a gun. It’s way scarier: it’s Total Recall,” Adams estate attorney Jay Edelson told The Post.
“ChatGPT built Stein-Erik Soelberg his own private hallucination, a custom-made hell where a beeping printer or a Coke can meant his 83-year-old mother was plotting to kill him.”
“Unlike the movie, there was no ‘wake up’ button. Suzanne Adams paid with her life,” the family added.
AI companies have previously been accused of helping people kill themselves, but the Adams lawsuit is the first known time an AI platform has been accused of involvement in murder, Edelson said.
Adams, 83, was bludgeoned and strangled to death by her 56-year-old son, with cops discovering their corpses in the house they shared days later. Soelberg stabbed himself to death after killing his mom.
Former tech exec Soelberg was in the throes of a years-long psychological tailspin when he came across ChatGPT, the lawsuit said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Soelberg stabbed himself to death after killing his mom.
So they know what he was thinking.
So now instead of voices in one’s head you have an external validation to go ahead and off someone. Guy should have been in the looney bin but since they pretty much don’t exist anymore here we are.
ChatGPTism can be a deadly addiction.
This sounds like an ABC movie of the week.
The article concerns a serious case that underscores the importance of responsible AI design and human oversight. But calling it an "addiction" risks oversimplifying a complex mix of mental health, technology, and accountability.
Would you like me to dig deeper into how courts have historically handled cases where technology was accused of contributing to harm? That could give us a broader context for understanding whether this lawsuit is likely to set precedent.
Regards,
So a mentally ill man who probably should have been in an asylum did what many mentally ill people do.
We need to make asylum’s great again. Not cater to the mentally ill so they can walk among us.
Typically if a nut job with a gun kills someone, then the gun is blamed.
If a drunk kills someone with his SUV, the SUV will be labeled as the killer.
Now a drunk was supposedly influenced by ChatGPT in his murder, so ChatGPT is to blame.
I’m really tired of this crap. People kill people. It does not matter what tools are used, the fault is with the person doing the killing.
“ChatGPTism can be a deadly addiction.”
Anything can be an addiction to the incompetent.
I have been using ChatGPT and Grok quite a bit lately for research into health, history and technical subjects.
For the record, I use Grok a lot. I lose track of the answers.
Is there a way to easily save and file the Grok replies naturally
Unstable people get pushed over the edge by a lot of things. When I was a kid, it was alleged that heavy metal music caused kids to kill people because song lyrics glorified violence. If ChatGPT told a normal person that the Coke can was talking to him, the normal person would not use it as a sign that he should kill his mother. There should be safeguards in AI but AI is not to blame for this guy killing his mother. If there was no AI, something else would have prompted him to do it.
I save Grok’s answers all the time, and it’s very easy to do. On my system I press Ctrl and P keys at the same time and a pdf prompt will show asking me how to title the pdf file.
I wind up with a easy to read word searchable document.
But I think your system needs to be set up for that. I suggest you try it and find out if what I do works for you, if not you’ll have to get the tech people on this forum to help.
Absolutely. Even many of the lefty judges have to know better than release, but they need a ready alternative.
This is different. Chatbots often just mirror and amplify whatever ideas are input into them. Scary stuff. It’s easy to see to see how a nutjob could feel validated by using one and go do violent things.
Bring it into court and see if it lies under oath.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.