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(WBNG) — A 55-year-old man has sued OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, alleging that ChatGPT-4o downplayed the severity of medical symptoms he shared with the chatbot.
In a lawsuit filed in California Superior Court, the plaintiff — identified as Scott Winters — claimed ChatGPT offered him “specific care directives” using an “authoritative tone,” advising him to combine medications and eventually “convinced him that seeking medical attention was unnecessary and even potentially lethal.”
Winters was later hospitalized for a life-threatening pulmonary embolism — blood clots in the lungs. According to the complaint, one of his doctors rejected ChatGPT’s diagnosis of nervous system malfunction as “flat out wrong.”
OpenAI responded to the lawsuit in a statement.
“ChatGPT is not a doctor and should never be used as a substitute for medical care, diagnosis, or treatment,” the company said. “Treating chatbots as the whole story behind people’s medical decisions or outcomes oversimplifies a much bigger challenge.”
Dr. Scott Cohen, Chief Medical Information Officer at Bassett Healthcare Network, said AI tools carry real risks when used for diagnosis.
“The biggest risk right now is getting incorrect diagnoses and incorrect treatments that are potentially harmful, like this case that we were talking about that triggered this discussion today, where OpenAI is being sued because someone wound up having a really bad diagnosis and the AI gave the advice of just reclining in a chair for a little while,” Cohen said.
Cohen said AI may have a role in health research, but not as a primary diagnostic tool.
“It’s not good for primary diagnosis, but it’s good for offering suggestions,” he said. “It’ll come up and say, well, here’s — you can ask, what are the potential diagnoses? And have those discussions with your doctor.”
Cohen said he advises his own patients to limit how they use AI in medical situations.
“There are a lot of potential uses for it, but for right now, I strongly recommend to our patients that we simply don’t use it for primary diagnosis, that we use it really for just research purposes at this point,” he said.
Winters is seeking financial damages. He has also asked the court to halt the new “ChatGPT Health” product from operating until independent evaluators determine it is safe.
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