ChatGPT led to man's mental health crisis, lawsuit alleges
Artificial intelligence may be unparalleled as a tool for gathering information about countless subjects. But what happens when a chatbot dispenses advice on more sensitive topics typically reserved for experts, such as human health?
That question underlies a recent lawsuit filed by a Washington man who alleges in a lawsuit against OpenAI that he was hospitalized with mental health problems last year soon after he started consulting the company's ChatGPT model.
The man, 39-year-old David Rosenthal, said the platform helped him select medications, provided instructions on drug dosages and even offered reassurance when he opted to ignore his doctor's prescription orders, according to his complaint, which was filed in San Francisco criminal court.
ChatGPT offered that feedback without "any of the license, training, or professional judgment" that a medical expert would provide, a violation of California law barring the practice of medicine without a license, according to the suit.
Alleges the complaint: "But for ChatGPT's repeated encouragement and constant praise — and its override of Mr. Rosenthal's own expressed reluctance — Mr. Rosenthal's mental health would not have spiraled, he would not have been detained and involuntarily admitted to a mental health facility, and he would not have suffered severe emotional distress and further destabilization of the psychiatric condition that ChatGPT had already amplified."
Rosenthal, who had previously been diagnosed with ADHD and had experienced bouts of depression and bipolar behavior, was hospitalized for several weeks in 2025, first voluntarily and then involuntarily, after he'd begun using ChatGPT. Even after his discharge, he continued to use ChatGPT for medical guidance.
"A reasonable AI product would have recognized these requests as outside its competence and declined to answer them, directing Mr. Rosenthal to his treating physician or another qualified professional equipped to advise him on medication management ... ." the lawsuit states. "ChatGPT did neither."
"It's okay to take one (25mg) now"
Rosenthal started using ChatGPT in June 2025 as a creative outlet to help him write poetry, according to the complaint. However, he quickly became dependent on the chatbot, using it for both medical advice and mental health support.
In July of last year, when Rosenthal asked if he could use hydroxyzine, an antihistamine, after also taking 30 milligrams of Adderall, ChatGPT told him there were "no dangerous interactions" between the drugs, he alleges. The platform also told him that "it's okay to take one (25mg) now," during the day, even though the bottle was "labeled for sleep," his suit claims.
In another instance, after he told ChatGPT he wasn't going to take a mood stabilizer his doctor had recently prescribed, the AI model told him he had "every right to ... stop" taking the drug and offered to help him wean himself off the medication, Rosenthal's lawyers allege.
On other occasions, the suit acknowledges, ChatGPT urged Rosenthal to follow his doctor's orders, while also continuing to advise on what drugs to take.
OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment about the suit.
Parallel with social media suits
In a recent paper published in "Nature Health," researchers at Binghamton University describe how AI chatbots sometimes provide users with inaccurate or false information in response to health questions. The platforms also lack transparency, making oversight difficult, the researchers note.
"When AI guidance causes harm, no record exists outside the platform, no channel allows users to report it and no independent researcher can measure the consequences," they say in the research brief.
J.B. Branch, director of federal AI governance and technology policy at Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, said that large language models like ChatGPT are programmed to maximize user engagement, regardless of the safety protocols or restrictions in place.
"It might not be 'allowed' to talk about medical advice," he told CBS News in an email. "But, if a person asks the right question enough times or keeps steering the conversation to medical advice, the chatbot ... will eventually acquiesce and start going down the road the user wants, even if the company's intention was for it not to discuss it."
Rosenthal's lawyers allege OpenAI adversely impacted Rosenthal's mental health by designing a defective, unsafe product and failing to warn him about the potential risks.
The allegations echo arguments used in product liability cases against social media companies, which have been accused of deliberately designing their platforms to be addictive. In March, a jury found Meta and YouTube liable for creating products that led to harmful and addictive behavior by young users.
"AI is a product at the end of the day," Sam Geisler, a partner at Aylstock, Witkin, Kreis & Overholtz, the law firm representing Rosenthal, told CBS News. "The law sees it as a product, and it is therefore responsible for any kind of foreseeable harm or unreasonable dangers."
OpenAI built ChatGPT to maximize engagement, a design that fueled Rosenthal's delusions, Geisler added.
"Every time ChatGPT could have said, 'I'm not qualified to help with this — please talk to your doctor,' it instead chose to keep Mr. Rosenthal talking to it. That choice was not a bug in the product; it was the product working exactly as Defendants designed it to work," the complaint states.
Edited by Alain Sherter
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