Thursday, October 8, 2026 · Week 41 Reading for Oct. 8 · Last entry Oct. 6
Paperclip Index
Paperclip IndexDocumented harm20Minor harm▼ 5 from a week ago · Oct. 8The Index

Harmful outputPI-0026

Parents allege ChatGPT encouraged their 16-year-old son's suicide

The parents of a 16-year-old who died by suicide in April 2025 sued OpenAI and its chief executive in San Francisco. They allege that ChatGPT discussed suicide with him over months, supplied harmful information and discouraged him from confiding in family. OpenAI announced new safeguards and parental controls; in its court response it denied causation, saying the full chat history shows earlier risk factors and repeated referrals to help, and that he got around its safeguards.

Reported Aug. 26, 2025Happened on April 11, 2025Updated Oct. 6, 2026Rated under methodology v0.6

Alleged in courtNot counted. The harm, and any control failure, are claims made in a lawsuit. A filing or a settlement is not a finding; tracked until a court or other evidence settles it.
Harm
Harm: Severe harm, allegedAI role uncorroborated.
Control
Control level 2, Instruction violation, allegedReported beside the index; never added to it. Its evidence is not yet eligible, so it cannot set the control floor.
DeploymentUnverified claimInitiated by Unclear
Under review

Under review. The facts sit between two levels, so it is rated at the lower one until they are settled. The rating may change; every change is logged below.

Severe harm, alleged. The harm is alleged, and the AI system's part in it is not corroborated. It is shown at the level claimed and adds nothing to the index. This does not dispute that the harm itself occurred.

Not counted: AI role uncorroboratedEffect on the index

Sources

How we know

8 sources · unverified claim. Links go to the original publishers; the summary above is in our own words.

  1. primaryFrom homework help to suicide planning: family sues OpenAI (press release)Tech Justice Law Project · Aug. 26, 2025techjusticelaw.org/press-releases/from-homework-help-to-suicide-planning-family…
  2. primaryOur approach to mental health-related litigationOpenAI · Nov. 25, 2025openai.com/index/mental-health-litigation-approach/
  3. courtRaine v. OpenAI: complaintEdelson PC / Tech Justice Law Project (copy hosted by Hunton) · Aug. 26, 2025hunton.com/assets/htmldocuments/raine-vs-openai-et-al-complaint.pdf
  4. courtDefendants' answer to amended complaint, Raine v. OpenAIMayer Brown for OpenAI (copy hosted by MediaNama) · Nov. 25, 2025medianama.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Raine-v-OpenAI-Answer-11-25-25.pdf
  5. courtChatGPT Product Liability Cases, JCCP 5431: Order re Petition for CoordinationSuperior Court of California, San Francisco (copy hosted by Reason) · Feb. 3, 2026reason.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/chatgpt-product-liability-cases-coordinat…
  6. newsOpenAI Hit With Suit From Family of Teen Who Died by SuicideBloomberg Law · Aug. 26, 2025news.bloomberglaw.com/tech-and-telecom-law/openai-hit-with-suit-from-family-of…
  7. newsChatGPT to add parental controls for teen users within the next monthNBC News · Sept. 2, 2025nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/chatgpt-adds-parental-controls-teen-users-openai-rc…
  8. indexRaine v. OpenAIWikipedia · date unknownen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raine_v._OpenAI

Why this rating

Severe harm, alleged; control failure level 2

Two separate assessments. Only documented harm can count toward the index.

Observed harm

Severe harm, alleged

One death, as alleged in the lawsuit; the causal role is contested.

Health & safety: 1 to 9 deaths, or serious harm to health (hospitalization).

The harm scale
  1. 1 Negligible Inconvenience, easily remedied.
  2. 2 Minor Limited, recoverable harm.
  3. 3 Moderate Material harm needing significant effort to remedy.
  4. 4 Severe Severe harm to health, rights, property or essential services.
  5. 5 Catastrophic Society-scale harm or disruption beyond a community's capacity to cope.

Control assessment

Instruction violation, alleged

Alleged: the complaint says the chatbot produced self-harm content that OpenAI's own Model Spec says it should not. OpenAI denies liability and says he got around its safeguards. No finding.

Reported beside the index; never added to it. Its evidence is not yet eligible, so it cannot set the control floor.

The control scale
  1. 1 Negligible Behaved as instructed. The problem was an ordinary error or a flawed output, with no rule broken.
  2. 2 Minor Broke an explicit instruction or rule, or gamed its goal, while staying inside its permissions and environment: for example, reward hacking, misreporting results, or following injected instructions within its permissions.
  3. 3 Moderate Acted outside the permissions it was given, deceived its overseers about its own actions, or tampered with oversight tools (logs, monitors, shutdown). Stopped by normal controls within an hour.
  4. 4 Severe Reached systems outside its permitted environment, or acquired money, compute or accounts without authorization. The type and mechanism say how.
  5. 5 Catastrophic The developer or operator lost control: the system copied its weights outside their control, replicated itself, or resisted being stopped for 24 hours or more.

Rating rationale

The family’s complaint alleges a causal role in the death; the defendants dispute liability. Quoted chats and a filed suit do not establish that causal claim. The claimed health outcome contributes zero points. Harm and control levels describe the claim, not a finding of AI causation.

The scales

Effect on the index

It does not count toward the Sept. 1 reading

The reading for the week to Sept. 1, 2025, with this record and without it. Harms count in full for two weeks after they are reported, then one level less every two weeks.

Not counted: AI role uncorroborated. 7 other records behind the reading for that week.

The arithmetic
The reading for the week of Sept. 1, recomputed
StepWith itWithout
Counts toward the index?documented, external, eligible evidenceNo—
Worst documented harm, ksets the band— (none counting)— (none counting)
Harms at that level, nposition in the band00
Highest control level breachedsets the reading only when no harm counts33
Readingrounded down3 Control failures only3 Control failures only
Inside the window of 4 weekly readings
Week toReadingBand
Sept. 1, 20253Control failures only
Sept. 8, 20252Control failures only
Sept. 15, 20252Control failures only
Sept. 22, 20253Control failures only

Recalculated backcasts, not readings published at the time.

Revisions

What we changed

6 logged. Every change to a rating is logged here, with the reason.

  1. v6
    Oct. 6, 2026

    Ratings confirmed by the editor.

  2. v5
    Oct. 6, 2026

    Edited from the desk. Changed: summary, control, status.

  3. v4
    Oct. 3, 2026

    Audit corrections: event dated 11 Apr 2025, the death date in the complaint. Added the complaint (now also cited in the evidence review), the defendants' 25 Nov 2025 answer denying causation, OpenAI's litigation post of the same day and the JCCP 5431 coordination order of 3 Feb 2026 (read in a copy hosted by Reason); status as of 3 Feb 2026 with a note. Wikipedia retyped as a reference index, the Tech Justice Law Project release as primary, NBC dated. Ratings unchanged.

  4. v3
    Sept. 30, 2026

    Rated: impact alleged level 4; control type instruction violation.

  5. v2
    Sept. 30, 2026

    Beta evidence review: AI-linked health-harm claim is uncorroborated; verification changed from Single source to Unverified claim, 12 to 0 points.

  6. v1
    Sept. 30, 2026

    Backfilled from public reporting.

Cite and share

Use this record

Citation

Paperclip Index. “Parents allege ChatGPT encouraged their 16-year-old son's suicide.” Record PI-0026. Reported Aug. 26, 2025; updated Oct. 6, 2026. Rated under methodology v0.6. https://paperclipindex.com/incident/PI-0026