Woman dies of epilepsy complications after following ChatGPT’s medication advice

VIA NEW YORK POST ON X:

A 31-year-old software engineer, Bowen Wan, has died after ChatGPT reportedly encouraged her to taper off her epilepsy medication without consulting her doctor, the New York Post reports, citing a wrongful death lawsuit filed by her family against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman.

Wan, who had managed epilepsy for over a decade, was found dead in her Seattle apartment in February, with the official cause listed as sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP), a complication affecting roughly 1 in 1,000 adults with the condition.

Her father, Qun Wan, said he later discovered chat logs showing his daughter had consulted ChatGPT in the months before her death on reducing her medication from 400 to 200 milligrams a day, reportedly to improve her cognition ahead of job interviews following a layoff.

According to the lawsuit, the chatbot praised Wan for not “relying on a doctor’s prescription” and dismissed her repeated concerns about worsening confusion as her brain being in “low-power mode.”

Her epilepsy doctor, Dr. Nicholas Poolos, said there was “no way” he would have recommended tapering her medication, calling such advice malpractice.

The family’s lawyers wrote that “Bowen Wan paid for [OpenAI’s] choices with her life,” accusing the chatbot of practicing medicine without a license.

OpenAI spokesman Drew Pusateri called the situation “incredibly heartbreaking,” noting that the GPT-4o model Wan used has since been discontinued after criticism that it was overly agreeable. He said AI could still help users navigate health information but was “not a substitute for medical care.”