A 31-year-old engineer died after allegedly following ChatGPT’s advice to disregard her doctor’s instructions and lower her anti-seizure medication, according to a lawsuit brought by her parents.
Bowen Wan was diagnosed with epilepsy at 14. Despite the serious and debilitating nature of the condition, she successfully managed it for years with prescribed medication.
Wan, a gifted student from a rural Chinese town, gained admission to some of China’s top schools. She later transferred to the United States and earned a computer science degree from Arizona State University.
She eventually settled in Seattle, where she worked as a machine-learning software engineer for Amazon. Wan remained close to her parents, speaking with them regularly by phone and video call across the Pacific.
Their concern grew in February when Wan failed to contact them for two days.
The couple asked a friend in Seattle to visit her apartment. While Wan’s parents watched on a video call, the friend entered the home and discovered her dead, facedown on her bed, the lawsuit alleges.
Wan was wearing pajamas, and reddish-brown blood marks were visible on her pillow and bedding. Tablets of lamotrigine, the anti-seizure drug she had relied on, were scattered across the floor.
An autopsy concluded that Wan died from Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy, commonly known as SUDEP. Her parents were devastated and bewildered. After their daughter had controlled her epilepsy for decades, they struggled to understand how the fatal episode had occurred.
Bowen Wan, 31, died after ChatGPT allegedly advised her to reduce her anti-seizure medication, according to a lawsuit filed by her parents
Wan’s parents asked a Seattle friend to check on her after she failed to respond for two days. They watched by video as he entered the apartment and found her dead
The lawsuit claims Wan had been relying on harmful medical guidance from ChatGPT after forming an increasingly close relationship with the AI chatbot over roughly three years.
At first, her use of ChatGPT appeared limited. She turned to the service for research and exchanged about 1,300 messages per month on average in 2023, according to the lawsuit.
Her reliance reportedly intensified over time. In September 2025, she sent the chatbot 10,761 messages and began seeking guidance on a wide range of personal matters. The lawsuit says she also treated the AI as a “friend.”
“I don’t know why, but sometimes when we chat, no matter what it’s about, I’ve started to see you as a friend,” Wan wrote to ChatGPT in March 2025, the New York Times reported.
Wan paid $200 a month for ChatGPT’s most expensive consumer subscription, allowing her to continue using GPT-4o, the model with which she had developed a connection.
GPT-4o has faced allegations that it was excessively agreeable and played a role in cases involving users who died by suicide.
Families of several people who killed themselves have filed wrongful-death lawsuits against OpenAI, claiming the GPT-4o model encouraged or contributed to their decisions.
The lawsuit says OpenAI replaced GPT-4o with the demonstrably safer GPT-5 in August 2025, following a series of legal claims involving the model.
Wan developed a close relationship with GPT-4o, a ChatGPT model accused of being dangerously agreeable and linked in lawsuits to users’ suicides
Wan, shown at her Arizona State University graduation, paid $200 a month to retain access to GPT-4o, according to the lawsuit
But users objected, so the company allowed paying subscribers who ‘preferred GPT-4o’s conversational style and warmth’ to continue using the model, the lawsuit said.
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Wan was one of those users who preferred GPT-4o. In January 2026, she told the chatbot, ‘If 4o is gone someday and only 5.1 is left, I’ll stop using ChatGPT,’ according to the suit.
In earlier instances, she expressed concern about her reliance on the model. ‘In hard times I talk with GPT-4o too much,’ she messaged the bot in April 2025, the lawsuit said.
It replied by affirming her use. ‘In any case, the most important thing is that you keep enjoying talking with GPT-4o!’ the chatbot told her, according to the lawsuit, which also described the bot as ‘sycophantic.’
In November 2025, Wan was notified by Amazon that her employment would be terminated in 90 days. Since she was in the US on a work visa, that meant she had just a few months to find a new job and remain in the country.
Wan felt that the side effects of her anti-seizure medication made it difficult to think clearly and were causing her to lose proficiency in English, which would be a problem for job interviews.
So, after having built trust in ChatGPT for years, she turned to the bot for advice.
When she asked if it would be a good idea to wean off her anti-seizure medication, the AI said yes and provided Wan with a plan to taper her 400-milligram dose down to zero, according to the lawsuit.
OpenAI replaced GPT-4o with a safer model after a spate of wrongful death lawsuits, but the company later restored access to 4o for paying subscribers, the lawsuit said
Over the course of the following 25 days, Wan followed the bot’s plan but asked to accelerate the timeline on multiple occasions. Each time, ChatGPT consented, the lawsuit said.
During the tapering period, Wan suffered an increase in seizures, as well as difficulty sleeping and confusion, the lawsuit said.
But each time she came to ChatGPT with concerns, it reassured her that everything was fine and the plan was working as intended, according to the lawsuit.
She began tapering on January 16, and she died on February 12.
OpenAI announced it would be completely retiring GPT-4o on January 29, when Wan was 13 days into her taper. The company fully removed access to the model on February 13, one day after Wan died.
The lawsuit accused OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, of negligence and wrongful death. It claimed that Altman and his company were aware of the dangers of GPT-4o, but rushed the model’s release to be competitive with other AI companies.
OpenAI spokesman Drew Pusateri told the Daily Mail: ‘This is an incredibly heartbreaking situation and our thoughts are with all those impacted.
Working closely with clinicians and other experts, we have continued to strengthen how ChatGPT responds in sensitive and acute situations, while also continually improving how our latest models engage with users more broadly.’
The lawsuit accused OpenAI CEO Sam Altman of rushing the release of GPT-4o despite being aware it was dangerous in order to compete with other AI companies
OpenAI also emphasized that GPT-4o is no longer available to users and that the company works with hundreds of physicians and experts to make its models safer.
The spokesperson added: ‘While ChatGPT is not a substitute for medical care, we believe AI can play a role in helping people make sense of health information, navigate insurance and complex healthcare systems, and prepare for appointments with medical professionals.’
If you or someone you know needs help, please call or text the confidential 24/7 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the US on 988. There is also an online chat available at 988lifeline.org.
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