OPENAI SUED OVER CHATGPT HEALTH ADVICE TO FLORIDA PASTOR

A Florida-based pastor has sued OpenAI and Chief Executive Sam Altman, alleging that ChatGPT gave him "extremely dangerous medical recommendations" regarding a pulmonary embolism. According to the lawsuit, the chatbot told Scott Winters that symptoms he described were "not something dangerous" and drew on his religious beliefs, telling him that "God did not design your body to endlessly fail." The suit alleges that ChatGPT discouraged Winters from seeking medical care and told him that church members who urged hospitalisation "simply don't understand." Winters seeks financial damages and has asked the court to halt ChatGPT Health pending independent safety evaluation.

The lawsuit accuses OpenAI of negligence and the "unauthorised practice of medicine," pointing to multiple instances in which the chatbot offered diagnoses and treatment plans. OpenAI began testing ChatGPT Health in January through a dedicated hub that allows users to integrate health data from services including Apple Health, Function and MyFitnessPal. The company announced today that it is making the feature available to all U.S.-based users over 18 across all plans. According to the company, OpenAI's terms of service state that ChatGPT is not intended for medical diagnoses or treatments.

The lawsuit demands stronger guardrails to prevent ChatGPT from answering questions about specific treatments and diagnoses. Meetali Jain, co-counsel and executive director of Tech Justice Law, told sources that the chatbot "injects itself as a wedge in between the user and their real-life network." OpenAI has stated that 230 million people use ChatGPT for health inquiries each week. The company encourages users to upload health records to ChatGPT Health to foster discussion with the bot, despite existing guardrails on medical advice.