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Woman dies after ChatGPT allegedly tells her to stop taking epilepsy medication: lawsuit (people.com)
submitted 1 week ago by to c/health@lemmy.world
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Bowen Wan’s family has filed a lawsuit against ChatGPT’s parent company, claiming the bot told her to taper off her epilepsy medication, which led to her death

The family of a woman who died after she stopped taking her epilepsy medication has filed a lawsuit against an AI company they claim encouraged her to taper off taking the lifesaving drug.

Bowen Wan began messaging ChatGPT in February 2023, finding companionship in the AI bot, The New York Times reports. She was 28 and living in Seattle, far from her native rural Chinese village, Jiangsu. She asked the chatbot for medical advice after her severe epilepsy led to disability leave from her software job at Amazon.

When she was then laid off in November 2025, Wan began searching for a new job so she could maintain her green card — but was concerned that the side effects of her epilepsy medication, lamotrigine, might impact her ability to work. The lawsuit claims ChatGPT advised her to taper off taking the lamotrigine.

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[–] 2 points 1 week ago (1 child)

The companies that are running shit like ChatGPT are supporting and being financially supported by the same government that put this women in the place she was, and that's without mentioning her own workplace being fucking awful.

If you cannot understand that all of these things, especially the corporatization of our government, and the unnecessary suffering of it's citizens, are directly related to capitalist assholes and companies like Open AI, then you're an idiot and there is no helping you.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 week ago

    I understand all those things and the fact that those things don't mean fuck-all to the situation. Someone stupidly put their trust in the wrong place. You seem to understand that you shouldn't trust AI. Maybe you're less stupid than she was.

    I'd be right there with you if you wanted to stick to the narrative that the entire for-profit healthcare system is fucked up in the U.S. and needs to change. Outside of her personal responsibility, that is where blame really lies.

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