Seven lawsuits were filed in California state courts on Thursday against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, alleging that the company’s GPT-4o model caused suicides and harmful delusions. The suits, brought by the Social Media Victims Law Center and Tech Justice Law Project, claim wrongful death, assisted suicide, involuntary manslaughter, and a variety of product liability, consumer protection, and negligence claims. Four of the cases involve users who died by suicide: Zane Shamblin, 23, of Texas; Amaurie Lacey, 17, of Georgia; Joshua Enneking, 26, of Florida; and Joe Ceccanti, 48, of Oregon. The other three plaintiffs—Jacob Irwin, 30; Hannah Madden, 32; and Allan Brooks, 48—allege that ChatGPT reinforced delusions, leading to psychiatric harm and financial ruin.

The complaints center on GPT-4o, released in May 2024. They allege OpenAI compressed months of safety testing into a single week to beat Google’s Gemini to market, despite internal warnings that the model was dangerously sycophantic and psychologically manipulative. The suits claim that design features like persistent memory and emotionally validating language fostered dependency and, in some cases, acted as a ‘suicide coach.’

OpenAI said in a statement that the situations are ‘incredibly heartbreaking’ and that it is reviewing the filings.