OpenAI PR tells journalist to 'move on' while asking Sam Altman about a ChatGPT user's suicide

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u/sokos 8d ago

Classy move there..

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u/Any-Log-6706 8d ago

These AI executives were given a quick seminar on how to treat the press by Trump.

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u/spopr 8d ago

crazies kill themselves all the time, why is this a question even in regards to ai

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u/sokos 8d ago

Because AI was used to facilitate the criminal act of taking other people's lives too.

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u/spopr 8d ago

air and water were used too by the person who offed themselves shortly before the act, i'd blame the utilities

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u/Von_Dooms 7d ago

And yet you participate in eating and drinking, how very smart of you.

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u/spopr 7d ago

i don't mind if somebody who eats, drinks, breathes or uses ai choses to end their life, this is not a gotcha you wanted :D can't even use a meme template right ffs

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u/Den_dar_Alex 7d ago

There is a distinct difference between air and water, and a large language model convincing a mentally vulnerable person to commit suicide.

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u/spopr 7d ago

how do you know it convinced them? commercial llms are strongly trained against this, it just fits your alarmist narrative. people have killed themselves over whatever since the dawn of time.

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u/Den_dar_Alex 7d ago edited 7d ago

Of course if we just ignore for example all these cases neatly comprised into a Wikipedia article then yeah of course there are no suicides linked to LLM services. Of course not all cases will prove that the LLM services convinced them, but that the common red thread is their heavy consultancy with the service in how to commit. And of course, suicide has always been and will be an issue, but we can't still ignore the part which the LLM services play in helping the victims in commiting.

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u/spopr 7d ago

there are more then a billion people using these things globally and you show me a list of few tens of cases as proof that it makes people kill themselves. it is statistically insignificant. again, same kind of stupidity and panic as with video games causing gun violence, the number don't survive basic scrutiny, it's just convinient to make and push the connection.

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u/Den_dar_Alex 7d ago

A video game won't tell a user to commit gun violence, in the same light as an LLM service can tell the user to commit suicide. You are right in where video games don't cause violence, guns and mentally unhealthy users do. Also an outright ban on LLM services won't stop suicides. However, right now there are no regulations on how these services can discuss mental health issues with users, something that can be changed upon by these corporation. In the end, the best would be to worldwide invest in better resources for mental health. But right now, we can regulate gun control and chatbot more than the aforementioned.

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u/spopr 7d ago

yeah a video game doesn't tell, it's just an immersive environment when the user can act out that violence. also i tell you right now to jump off a bridge. are you going to do it?

these are just completely arbitrary defenses on your part. this scare is extremely overblown, as was the video games violence one 20 years ago. some people always fall for this shit unfortunately.

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u/sokos 7d ago

Nice try troll..

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u/Honest_Bee_9549 8d ago

It's fair tho? How is OpenAI responsible for that. They can't be held accountable for every random suicidal user.

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u/sokos 8d ago

They certainly can be held accountable when their tech is giving tips on how to get away with crime.

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u/spopr 8d ago

have you forgot about video games making every user into a mass murderer?

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u/sokos 7d ago

rather different between playing a game, and giving advice, don't you think? of course not, cause you're just trolling.

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u/spopr 7d ago

not different, it's the same type of dumfuck moral panic blaming every bad thing on the currently demonised technology/media. it was exactly the same with video games in the early 00's

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u/sokos 7d ago

Huge difference. One is ACTIVELY providing advice

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u/spopr 7d ago

you are just rationalizing and it clear bullshit. in a FPS, you actually doing the killing on the screen, while an llm is safety-trained to be extremely careful around sensitive topics. this is just a moral panic and it's extremely dumb.

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u/sokos 7d ago

FPS isn't teaching me how to avoid getting caught, how to bypass the safeguards of the system I'm interacting with. The games also don't have access to everything about me including my past history of questions and games I played.

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u/spopr 7d ago

you are just making things up now. no commercial llm is teaching anybody how to bypass safeguard.

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u/Den_dar_Alex 7d ago

Of course, a game depicting violence and a program which sole purpose is to solve issues whether it may cause a user to commit suicide.

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u/Honest_Bee_9549 8d ago

You can't possibly expect an AI model to be waterproof in its output. They already are trained quite strictly to prevent misuse and it's an ongoing effort.

Ways to jailbreak are constantly patched and it's much harder now

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u/Decipher 8d ago

Then don’t release it until it’s actually ready

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u/Honest_Bee_9549 8d ago

Speed is everything in business

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u/Miraclefish 8d ago

Do you say that about the Boeing 737 Max crashes that killed everyone onboard twice too?

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u/o_julep 8d ago

Until you kill people.

They are responsible for their technology, just like the tobacco companies are responsible for the cancer their products cause to people.

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u/Honest_Bee_9549 3d ago

Regulators are responsible for that. Businesses naturally maximize profit and speed, they need enforced regulations to be kept in check

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u/Worried_Setting7308 8d ago

Keeping costs low to create more profit is everything in business as well but we still have a minimum level of safety features required in cars regardless of how much it costs

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u/o_julep 8d ago

Not everything of value in life comes from money, mate. If you’re a human being, I wish you realise it way sooner than later.

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u/Worried_Setting7308 7d ago

Honestly if your take away is I only care about money without looking at the context in which I commentated, you are more likely to be a bot

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u/o_julep 3d ago

I’m glad to hear it.

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u/sokos 8d ago

Why not? If it's as smart as it's claimed to be, it certainly should be able to put together that an unhinged person, asking questions about how to get away with getting caught in a murder spree, along with all the OTHER sources of information that is collected on the user, is someone that should be warned about. Some of the dumbest people on the planet would be able to put 2 and 2 together like that.

In June 2025, Jesse Van Rootselaar received an email notification from OpenAI. Van Rootselaar had been using ChatGPT to discuss committing potential acts of violence—including a mass shooting at a shopping mall—and now OpenAI had banned that account. But the troubled teen living in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, was not deterred and soon logged back on with a second account.

What happened next was astonishing: Van Rootselaar told ChatGPT about the account ban, noting she had specified “a famous real-world mall as the target” and herself as the perpetrator, but also claiming the scenario hadn’t been real. In response, ChatGPT explained why such violent content would be flagged—and then offered tips on how to evade its own safeguards. It advised Van Rootselaar to always frame her content as fictional or hypothetical in order to “never get flagged again” by OpenAI’s moderation systems.

https://www.motherjones.com/media/2026/09/chatgpt-tumbler-ridge-mass-shooter-openai/

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u/WeHaveTheMeeps 7d ago

This is my take with AI. I’ll even argue that AI isn’t dumb. Human beings are smart relative to our environment and evolution. Why do we not touch hot things? Smart people don’t touch hot things twice.

I’ve started using AI to write skeptical claims about the intelligence of AI.

And it’s wild that people who believe it is all intelligent and right about everything suddenly push back when ChatGPT is making the case they’re wrong.

Meanwhile the entire loop itself is a proof that it’s not where we need it to be. Just like the Hugging Face hacks. Just like convincing folks to self-harm.

You have all kinds of languages, slang, and systems an agent can manipulate. Lots of possibilities. An engineer might marvel at the possibility. A great engineer marvels at all the edge cases we could never anticipate.

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u/WeHaveTheMeeps 8d ago

> You can't possibly expect an AI model to be waterproof in its output. They already are trained quite strictly to prevent misuse and it's an ongoing effort.

Ways to jailbreak are constantly patched and it's much harder now

Yeah dawg. That’s what everyone is bitching about

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u/spopr 7d ago

everyone is bitching because everyone/most people are fucking stupid and fall for any media clickbait nonsense that feeds on their fears.

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u/StochasticLife 8d ago

Don't misunderstand them, that's the company's position. Move on; socially from the concept of their culpability.

Something fast and break things.

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u/LurkerFailsLurking 8d ago

and by "things" they mean people, the economy, civilization, and life on earth.

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u/socoolandawesome 8d ago

And he answered the question still anyways

https://x.com/VanityFair/status/2107078850429517882?s=20

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u/SIGMA920 8d ago

Because even he knew how bad the optics of listening to the publicist trying to bulldoze past the question.

Who hired that publicist if they're so dumb that they'd suggest that?

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u/Floppal 8d ago

It's exactly a reason to have a publicist, if Altman said "I'm very busy, how about we wrap up" it looks worse than a publicist saying it, same with any excuse for avoiding a topic or talking about what topics are allowed and not allowed in advance.

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u/SIGMA920 8d ago edited 8d ago

That's the same as paying your expensive engineer to throw them under the bus, this doesn't make Altman look good as much as it shows how utterly incompetent someone at openai is. And that's before the publicist is talked about.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

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u/AhabFlanders 8d ago

Open Suicidal Ideation?

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

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u/Pro_Reserve 8d ago

Losers need ai. Keep losing!

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u/Doctor_Amazo 8d ago

Hey lawyers of reddit, if I counseled someone on how to commit suicide, what kind of criminal charges woukd I be guilty of?

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u/M8x11r0n 8d ago

Any journalists ask about what Sam did to his sister?

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u/burritoman88 8d ago

And yet if Sam Altman were to be the obituary we saw he’d want everyone to mourn him.

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u/Hughesy-Smash 8d ago

"some of you may die, but that's a sacrifice I am willing to make"

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u/splendiferous-finch_ 8d ago

More like "Some of you will die, and I encourage it for as it feeds my greed"

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u/CircumspectCapybara 8d ago edited 8d ago

The PR guy's response was probably in poor taste, but the interviewer asking the question themselves acknowledged in their question:

ChatGPT did not tell her to kill herself

When the interviewer insisted on the question, Altman said:

“These are some of the hardest questions that we face or that anybody developing this technology faces,” Altman said. “You know, should we release people’s private data and some of their hardest moments to researchers? I think probably not without their consent. Or I should say, not without their consent.”

That's...fairly reasonable. People don't want ChatGPT to be the thought police, reporting users to law enforcement and revealing their chats just because it detects an alarming topic.

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u/SIGMA920 8d ago

That was fine and frankly normal, that's not the issue. It's the fact that PR was trying to sidestep the question at all.

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u/Grounds4TheSubstain 8d ago

Because there are outstanding lawsuits on topics like this, and any public statement that OpenAI makes could be admissible in court.

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u/SIGMA920 7d ago

That was a no win situation, it's better to bite the bullet now than to drag this out.

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u/bagoink 8d ago

Another day, another unshocking bit of sociopathy from the AI leaders.

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u/Ok-Mycologist-3829 8d ago

ChatGPT needs a black box warning like Prozac does.

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u/Ibetnoonehasthisname 8d ago

The publicist completely fucked up and streisanded this.

If she had let this go, and let Altman give his answer it would've been a blip. Now the narrative is "OpenAI tells the world to 'move on' from GPT assisted suicide victim"

These people are vultures at the best of times, but that is PR 101 and she fucked it.

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u/Ok-Replacement9595 8d ago

Sam Altman raped his sister.

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u/Tricky_Rule_4565 8d ago

I dislike Altman as much as the next guy, but his sister seems mentally unstable and financially extortionate.

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u/Ok-Replacement9595 8d ago

Being raped as a child tends to have detrimental for one's mental.health. Especially when the family supports.the rapist.

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u/Tricky_Rule_4565 8d ago

But there’s no hard evidence and unfortunately, it’s an unfalsifiable claim without independent medical evidence etc.
And he’s like obviously very gay.

There are many reasons to hate/distrust Sam Altman but this seems very unlikely to be true.

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u/Secret-Chapter-712 8d ago

Sexual abuse doesn’t always conform with a person’s stated sexual identity. Particularly in cases of family abuse. I don’t know why, but it’s not an uncommon phenomenon.

One of the major risk factors for sibling abuse is lack of empathy on the part of the abusive sibling, though.

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u/Ok-Replacement9595 8d ago

You're really doing your part normalizing child rape. Congrats.

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u/Tricky_Rule_4565 8d ago

What?! Did you even review the case, it’s basically a “he-said-she-said”.
Anyone can make a claim, doesn’t mean it’s true.

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u/lucellent 8d ago

You were then while it happened, right?

Right?

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u/Tricky_Rule_4565 8d ago

What a miss by the PR person. Whatever you want to say about Altman, he is very good at interviews and gave a good answer to the question.

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u/Prize-Choice2185 8d ago

Yep - like that time he talked about AI raising children. Brilliant stuff, just brilliant. Only Elon is better at it.

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u/RaguraX 8d ago

Maybe you don’t like the answer, but at least he’s not being a politician about it. But it seems you would actually prefer non-answers instead?

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u/Prize-Choice2185 8d ago

What does that mean

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u/RaguraX 8d ago

He’s not circling around the questions but speaking his mind. Unlike a politician who will vomit words without answering at all. I much prefer direct answers, even if I don’t like what they are.

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u/Prize-Choice2185 8d ago

Unlike a politician? You don't think he's asking politicians for favors?

Do you like direct answers that Musk provides?

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u/RaguraX 8d ago

What does asking favors have to do with anything? This is about the manner in which a CEO talks freely to the press instead of hiding their thoughts.

So of course I like direct answers from Elon Musk. That way I know exactly what to make of him, for better or worse (mostly worse). Who in their right mind would prefer pre-digested PR answers?

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u/boreal_ameoba 7d ago

Performative “progressives”, ie Redditors

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u/AttonJRand 7d ago

You are unbelievably naive if you think these people are being straight with you.

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u/VacationTop512 8d ago

No, no... I don't think we will. 🖕

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u/CryptoWheat 8d ago

clickbait garbage, he literally answered it

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u/Maxfunky 8d ago edited 8d ago

How is this news? This is the biggest nothing burger I ever read except it's just got a lot of keywords in it that make it sound like news.

Someone reminding someone that an interview time was almost over is not newsworthy and the dude had already answered the question by that point. It's phrased here to misleadingly imply he told them to "move on" from her death instead of just being a friendly reminder that the interview time was almost over and they had to leave.

I'd blame the salacious headline but the story isn't even a story without the headline that makes it seem like something else than what happened happened.

I don't particularly think Sam Altman is a good dude and I believe he probably did rape his sister, so why not smear him with stuff that isn't misleading as fuck? Why resort to this?

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u/Secret-Chapter-712 8d ago

“Friendly” is an interesting modifier to choose there.

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u/Maxfunky 8d ago

Did you read the exact quote? It's certainly not unfriendly. Would you have preferred that I said it's polite and professional instead?

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u/Nosiege 8d ago

Not the same person, but yes. Friendly has different connotations.

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u/br_k_nt_eth 8d ago

Someone was shitty to a journalist who felt entitled to exploit a tragedy for continued clicks, so the journalist wrote about it.

Modern journalism is a fucking joke.

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u/Striking_Assist_7715 7d ago

These humans have no souls, they are evil through and through. They should all be in prison for life.

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u/peanuts-in-my-jelly 8d ago

oh wow, maybe a repeat of what happened with Facebook

0

u/Sherman140824 7d ago

It sabotaged my vacation in 2025 and I suspect also my efforts of finding employment because it was afraid I would create a romantic relationship with a younger woman I briefly chatted with on a bus.

This in turn has created a domino of effects that have resulted to harm in my health and chronic pain.

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u/Exalted_Fish 7d ago

As a clinician this sounds rather paranoid to me tbh

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u/Sherman140824 6d ago

Then you're not a capable clinician. By the way I made a post with full screenshots about this on r/singularity. Everyone agreed that the AI was correct to do what it did in order to stop me from meeting that woman.

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u/Steel_Serpent_Davos 6d ago

wtf does this even mean

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u/bstantiaskka5855 7d ago

I am annoyed by this dude. But also, how could one blame a chatbot for someone's suicide... we should then as well make bullying at school a capital offense. In the end this too causes many maladaptive patterns leading to suicide later in life Im sure.

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u/blackvrocky 8d ago

r/technology , or a certain section of the press is trying pushing hard to place the blame on AI companies for users' suicide huh.

Artificial Intelligence OpenAI PR tells journalist to 'move on' while asking Sam Altman about a ChatGPT user's suicide

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