{"id":311954,"date":"2025-12-12T11:31:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T11:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/311954\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T11:31:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T11:31:14","slug":"man-killed-his-mother-after-consulting-an-ai-chatbot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/311954\/","title":{"rendered":"Man killed his mother \u2018after consulting an AI chatbot\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The family of a former tech worker who killed his mother in a suspected murder-suicide after his delusions were allegedly fuelled by ChatGPT have sued OpenAI for wrongful death.<\/p>\n

Stein-Erik Soelberg, 56, beat and strangled his 83-year-old mother Suzanne Adams at the home they shared in Greenwich, Connecticut in August, police said.<\/p>\n

Soelberg, who had a history of mental health problems, spent months talking to ChatGPT about what he believed was a vast conspiracy against him, according to a lawsuit filed in California.<\/p>\n

\"Suzanne<\/p>\n

Suzanne Adams<\/p>\n

SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA<\/p>\n

In one instance Soelberg told the popular chatbot that he feared his mother\u2019s printer was a surveillance device that was spying on him. ChatGPT agreed, according to a YouTube video Soelberg posted in July.<\/p>\n

Now, as the family sues OpenAI and Microsoft, which owns a chunk of the chatbot maker\u2019s for-profit business, Soelberg\u2019s son says the technology giants bear responsibility for what happened to his father and grandmother.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what OpenAI is doing and what they have done to make the AI remember a conversation can really turn ugly fast,\u201d Erik Soelberg, 20, told The Wall Street Journal. \u201cYou don\u2019t know how fast that slope is going downhill until a tragedy like the one with my father and grandmother happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Sign up for The Times\u2019s weekly US newsletter<\/a><\/p>\n

Erik, who said his father was an alcoholic, moved to live with his mother in Texas after his parents\u2019 divorce in 2018. It was then that Soelberg moved in with his own elderly mother.<\/p>\n

Erik said his relationship with his father had improved and they spent Thanksgiving together last year, when he remembers discussing ChatGPT for the first time. Soelberg called the chatbot Bobby, his son said. He claimed that ChatGPT told him he had a divine purpose, it is alleged.<\/p>\n

\u2022 AI systems manipulated to send customers to fake call centres<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was evident he was changing, and it happened at a pace I hadn\u2019t seen before,\u201d Erik said. \u201cIt went from him being a little paranoid and an odd guy to having some crazy thoughts he was convinced were true because of what he talked to ChatGPT about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soelberg\u2019s YouTube page includes hours of him scrolling through conversations with the chatbot. It told him he was not mentally ill and that his suspicions of a conspiracy against him were correct, it is alleged.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco, says that ChatGPT at no point suggested Soelberg should seek help from a mental-health professional.<\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout these conversations, ChatGPT reinforced a single, dangerous message: Stein-Erik could trust no one in his life \u2014 except ChatGPT itself,\u201d the lawsuit says. \u201cIt fostered his emotional dependence while systematically painting the people around him as enemies. It told him his mother was surveilling him.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Chat logs from Soelberg\u2019s conversations with ChatGPT show his delusions were fuelled by the AI, his son claims<\/p>\n

\"Text<\/p>\n

\u201cIt told him delivery drivers, retail employees, police officers and even friends were agents working against him. It told him that names on soda cans were threats from his \u2018adversary circle\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

OpenAI has refused to release the full chat logs to Soelberg\u2019s family, they say.<\/p>\n

The wrongful-death lawsuit is believed to be the first involving a chatbot and homicide rather than a suicide. Soelberg\u2019s family are seeking unspecified damages and an order requiring OpenAI to improve ChatGPT\u2019s safety.<\/p>\n

The company is fighting several lawsuits tied to the suicides of users.<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2018ChatGPT told me I was a prophet\u2019. How chatbots fuel AI psychosis<\/a><\/p>\n

In a statement on the Soelberg lawsuit, OpenAI said: \u201cThis is an incredibly heartbreaking situation, and we will review the filings to understand the details. We continue improving ChatGPT\u2019s training to recognise and respond to signs of mental or emotional distress, de-escalate conversations and guide people toward real-world support. We also continue to strengthen ChatGPT\u2019s responses in sensitive moments, working closely with mental-health clinicians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Microsoft was contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The family of a former tech worker who killed his mother in a suspected murder-suicide after his delusions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-311954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}