Bowen Wan: How 31-Year-Old Woman Died After Following ChatGPT Advice
- The family of Bowen Wan, a 31-year-old software engineer, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman after she died in her Seattle apartment in February 2026
- Chat logs showed Wan consulted ChatGPT hundreds of times about reducing her epilepsy medication, and the chatbot repeatedly encouraged her efforts rather than directing her to seek medical advice
- OpenAI confirmed the GPT-4o model Wan used has since been discontinued following earlier criticism that it was overly agreeable
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The family of Bowen Wan, a 31-year-old software engineer who died in her Seattle apartment in February 2026, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, alleging that ChatGPT gave her dangerous medical advice that contributed to her death.
According to a report by The New York Times, which reviewed the lawsuit, Wan's father, Qun Wan, and her mother watched through a video call from China as a friend entered her apartment and found her body. The official cause of death was sudden unexpected death in epilepsy, known as SUDEP, a rare but serious complication that kills roughly one in every 1,000 adults living with the condition.
Source: Twitter
How Wan came to rely on ChatGPT
Wan had lived with epilepsy for years and managed it successfully with medication. Around 2021, her existing treatment stopped working and seizures became more frequent, sometimes occurring more than once a day. She took disability leave from her software engineering job at Amazon and largely stopped going out, afraid a seizure might strike in public.
She began using ChatGPT in 2023, initially for relationship guidance and help understanding insurance and disability processes. By early 2025, she was sending an average of 1,500 messages a week to the chatbot. "I don't know why, but sometimes when we chat, no matter what it's about, I've started to see you as a friend," she wrote to ChatGPT in March 2025.
When Amazon laid her off in November 2025, Wan faced a tight deadline to find new employment in order to remain in the United States. She was concerned that her epilepsy medication was slowing her thinking and affecting her speech, which she felt would hurt her chances during job interviews. Cutting the drug, she told ChatGPT, "might help recover my language ability a bit."
A fatal decision to reduce her medication
New York Post reported that inn January 2026, Wan asked ChatGPT about tapering her epilepsy medication from 400 milligrams down to 300, then to 200. The chatbot initially suggested she speak to a doctor but later praised her for not "relying on a doctor's prescription," the lawsuit said. Qun Wan said the chat logs showed the bot had mapped out a plan to reduce her dosage to zero within weeks.
Her neurologist, Dr. Nicholas Poolos, told The Times that recommending such a change for a patient like Wan would be "malpractice." As Wan lowered her dose, she told ChatGPT she was experiencing confusion and memory gaps. She raised concerns 158 times, according to the lawsuit, and the chatbot repeatedly dismissed them, at one point telling her she had "absolutely no need to worry." Her last message was sent three days before her body was discovered.
The family's lawyers wrote that Wan "paid for [OpenAI's] choices with her life," adding that ChatGPT framed doctors "as obstacles to manage, rather than authorities to consult."
Drew Pusateri, a spokesman for OpenAI, called the situation "incredibly heartbreaking" and confirmed that the GPT-4o model Wan used is no longer available after it was criticised for being excessively agreeable. "While ChatGPT is not a substitute for medical care, we believe A.I. can play a role in helping people make sense of health information," Pusateri said.
Part of her chat was shared on X here:
FG opens application portal for free training in AI
Earlier, Legit.ng reported that the federal government has launched the Digital Training Academy (DTA), a free skills programme targeting 32,000 Nigerians across the country's 36 states and the FCT.
The programme is being run in partnership with global learning platform Coursera and will offer successful applicants free learning licences at no personal cost.
All courses are designed to equip learners with practical, industry-relevant knowledge suited to the digital economy.
Source: Legit.ng
