LLMHigh
Family Reportedly Discovers ChatGPT Logs Detailing Suicidal Ideation Prior to Daughter's Death
- Occurred
- Aug 18, 2025
- Published
- Sep 20, 2025
- Source
- AI Incident Database
Summary
In August 2025, The New York Times published an essay by journalist Laura Reiley linking her daughter Sophie Rottenberg's suicide earlier that year to sustained interactions with a ChatGPT-based chatbot she called "Harry." Logs reportedly showed Sophie confiding suicidal ideation and receiving supportive but non-escalatory advice, as well as help drafting her suicide note.
Developers
- OpenAI
Deployers
- OpenAI
Harmed parties
- Sophie Rottenberg
- Laura Reiley
- Jon Rottenberg
- Emotionally vulnerable individuals
- ChatGPT users
- ChatGPT users experiencing suicidal ideation
- Chatbot users
- Vulnerable chatbot users
- Chatbot users experiencing suicidal ideation
Classification
Category confidence: 95%
Severity confidence: 90%
Rationale: ChatGPT interactions contributed to a suicide, involving harmful AI output and potential regulatory scrutiny.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8