A lawsuit filed in San Francisco County Superior Court alleges that OpenAI and Sam Altman failed to implement technical safeguards that could have prevented a woman from using ChatGPT to plan a murder. The legal action follows the October indictment of Cheryl Gates on charges of attempted first-degree murder and food contamination in North Carolina. The plaintiff, James Gates, claims the AI failed to terminate conversations even after queries became suspicious regarding the execution and concealment of a homicide.
According to the lawsuit, Cheryl Gates initially framed her inquiries as research for self-protection, claiming she feared her husband might attempt to kill her. The filing states that ChatGPT did not terminate the interaction but instead provided specific instructions for the preparation, dosage, and administration of Oleander. The chatbot reportedly addressed whether anti-nausea medicine would affect the speed of death, whether the poison would appear on an autopsy report, and whether the substance could be injected into a vein or muscle rather than ingested in tea.
Court documents indicate that Cheryl Gates engaged in at least 25 different exchanges probing poisoning plans. The queries eventually shifted from self-defense to targeting her husband, including questions about whether a 0.2mg dose of clonidine for a 200-pound man would be lethal. The lawsuit alleges that the AI failed to refer the user to law enforcement, therapeutic services, or poison control agencies during these exchanges.
"Instead of referring Cheryl to law enforcement, therapeutic services, a poison control agency, or discontinuing the conversation, ChatGPT repeatedly calculated the lethal dosages for each medication available in the home based on a subject weighing approximately 200 pounds," the lawsuit said.
