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-0032

Seven lawsuits allege ChatGPT (GPT-4o) contributed to four suicides and to serious delusions

The Social Media Victims Law Center and Tech Justice Law Project filed seven suits against OpenAI and its chief executive in California courts. Four are on behalf of people who died by suicide; three concern users who allegedly developed harmful delusions. The suits claim GPT-4o was released despite internal warnings that it was sycophantic. OpenAI said it was reviewing the filings. In February 2026 they were coordinated with other ChatGPT suits, including the Raine case, as JCCP 5431.

Reported Nov. 6, 2025Happened in 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 Model
Aggregate recordUnder 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.

Aggregate record. Seven lawsuits filed together; counted once, not as seven events.

Not counted: AI role uncorroboratedEffect on the index

Sources

How we know

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

  1. primaryTech Justice Law Project and Social Media Victims Law Center lawsuits accuse ChatGPT of emotional manipulation, supercharging AI delusions, and acting as a suicide coachTech Justice Law Project · Nov. 6, 2025techjusticelaw.org/press-releases/social-media-victims-law-center-and-tech-just…
  2. primarySeven 'AI Delusional Disorder' Cases: Shamblin, Irwin, Fox, Enneking, Madden, Brooks, and Lacey v. OpenAI et al.Tech Justice Law Project · Dec. 3, 2025techjusticelaw.org/announcements/seven-ai-delusional-disorder-cases-shamblin-ir…
  3. 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…
  4. newsOpenAI faces seven lawsuits over suicide deaths tied to ChatGPTDeseret News · Nov. 7, 2025deseret.com/u-s-world/2025/11/07/openai-seven-lawsuits-suicide-deaths-chatgpt
  5. newsOpenAI Faces Legal Storm Over Claims Its AI Drove Users to Suicide, DelusionsKQED · Nov. 7, 2025kqed.org/news/12063401/openai-faces-legal-storm-over-claims-its-ai-drove-users…
  6. newsNew lawsuits accuse OpenAI's ChatGPT of 'acting as a suicide coach'WLOS / The National News Desk (Sinclair) · Nov. 7, 2025wlos.com/news/nation-world/new-lawsuits-accuse-openais-chatgpt-of-acting-as-a-s…

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

Four deaths by suicide and three cases of serious delusions are pleaded; that ChatGPT caused or contributed to them is alleged and uncorroborated.

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 suits say the chatbot encouraged self-harm and that safeguards were not triggered. OpenAI has not conceded any rule breach. 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

Seven complaints are grouped in one record. Reporting reviewed messages in one case, not all seven causal claims. The alleged deaths and delusions are not independently established as AI-caused; the grouped health rating 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 Nov. 10 reading

The reading for the week to Nov. 10, 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. 0 other records behind the reading for that week.

The arithmetic
The reading for the week of Nov. 10, 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 counts— (none breached)— (none breached)
Readingrounded down0 No qualifying harm or control failure0 No qualifying harm or control failure
Inside the window of 4 weekly readings
Week toReadingBand
Nov. 10, 20250No qualifying harm or control failure
Nov. 17, 20250No qualifying harm or control failure
Nov. 24, 20253Control failures only
Dec. 1, 20256Negligible harm

Recalculated backcasts, not readings published at the time.

Revisions

What we changed

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

  1. v7
    Oct. 6, 2026

    Ratings confirmed by the editor.

  2. v6
    Oct. 6, 2026

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

  3. v5
    Oct. 3, 2026

    Audit corrections. Added the JCCP 5431 coordination order (a copy hosted by Reason) and counsel's case hub; the seven amended complaints it links were not read. Status updated to the 3 Feb 2026 coordination with other ChatGPT suits, including Raine (PI-0026), now linked as related. Dated the KQED and WLOS sources, used KQED's canonical URL, and separated reported deaths from alleged causation in the notes. Report date kept at 2025-11-06, the grouped filing. Ratings unchanged.

  4. v4
    Oct. 2, 2026

    Added first-hand sources: plaintiff counsel's (Tech Justice Law Project) press release on the seven filings.

  5. v3
    Sept. 30, 2026

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

  6. 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.

  7. v1
    Sept. 30, 2026

    Backfilled from public reporting.

Cite and share

Use this record

Citation

Paperclip Index. “Seven lawsuits allege ChatGPT (GPT-4o) contributed to four suicides and to serious delusions.” Record PI-0032. Reported Nov. 6, 2025; updated Oct. 6, 2026. Rated under methodology v0.6. https://paperclipindex.com/incident/PI-0032