I have been following a few cases in which plaintiffs have sued AI companies alleging that their AI platforms helped (or induced) loved ones to commit suicide. (The most recent post on this post is here.)
Courthouse News Service reported this week about a new case in which a widow is suing Open AI, the maker of ChatGPT.
This case, however, is significantly different than others because the plaintiff's lawsuit doesn’t include a single conversation between her husband and either chatbot. She believes the conversations contributed to his death, but holds that belief on circumstances, not records. In essence, it sounds like she filed the lawsuit in an attempt to get access to the logs and records in an attempt to build a case.
Typically, that is not how things work, and the defendant might argue that the case has been filed without basis in law or facts. This would make the case frivolous and could lead the court to impose sanctions on the plaintiff's lawyer, so it will be interesting to see how the case progresses.
And, if the case is allowed to continue, it will also be interesting to see how the court handles the possible argument that the decision to commit suicide should be considered to be a superseding cause that defeats the plaintiff's support for the element of proximate cause. As you probably know, many states have ruled that it is and that it does "as a matter of law." Yet, a few states have decided to abandon this so-called "suicide rule." See, for example, here (Washington) and here (Nevada).
