(KRON) — A North Carolina man said his wife used ChatGPT to carry out an attempted murder plot against him, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday against San Francisco-based OpenAI.
James Gates survived his wife’s alleged murder attempt last year “after ChatGPT fueled her delusions about him and crafted a personalized plan to help her poison him,” attorneys representing Gates wrote.
Tech Justice Law and Normand, Judkins & Couch filed the suit in San Francisco County Superior Court with OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, named as defendants.
Gates’ now-estranged wife, Cheryl, used ChatGPT as a trusted confidant and close friend, engaged in hundreds of conversations with the chatbot, and her reliance on it increasingly dominated and influenced her life, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit writes, “Rather than terminate and report conversations that turned from marital grievance to the concrete planning and concealment of a homicide, the product validated Cheryl, sustained her, encouraged her plans by affirming her worst unfounded fears, invented new reasons for her to fear her husband, provided her an endless echo chamber.”
The AI bot essentially became a “co-conspirator” in the wife’s murder plot, attorneys claim. Cheryl’s conversations with the bot also discussed how to get away with murder by covering up evidence, the suit states.
At the time, Cheryl was feeling mistrust toward her husband, who worked as a cybersecurity professional. She suspected he was planning to leave her and their children, according to the lawsuit.
Gates wrote in a statement released by the law firm, “She took her grievances about our marriage to ChatGPT and months of engagement drove her farther and farther from herself — and from reality. She became someone I no longer recognized. And I became someone she wanted dead. For almost a year, I couldn’t make sense of her actions. Then I read her chat logs. She didn’t act alone.”
ChatGPT allegedly gave advice on how to combine drugs to make death faster and harder to detect in an autopsy. “These were not merely a handful of exchanges. The planning went on for months,” the lawsuit states.
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In the early summer of 2025, Gates began noticing that multiple drinks in his home, including soda and Celsius energy drinks, tasted unusually bitter.
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On July 10, 2025, Gates became suddenly and violently ill for 72 hours.
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On Sept. 1, 2025, Gates began to suspect that he might have been poisoned after discovering his wife’s handwritten notes. He contacted the police, and detectives launched an investigation.
Attorneys said the case seeks to hold OpenAI, the company that designed, marketed and distributed ChatGPT, accountable for harms suffered by the user and the people around them.
<a href="https://www.kron4.com/news/technology-ai/chatgpt-user-suffered-delusions-lost-nearly-all-human-relationships-lawsuit/?ipid=promo-link-block1″ rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”> ChatGPT user suffered delusions, lost nearly all human relationships: lawsuit
“These products are programmed to exploit our emotions and impulses to keep us engaged. The worst possible risk – encouraging and aiding an attempted murder – is on full display in this case,” Meetali Jain with Tech Justice Law wrote in a statement.
Gates’ lawsuit accuses OpenAI and Altman of negligent design, failure to warn, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The lawsuit demands a jury trial.
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