A college student from Georgia has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that interactions with ChatGPT convinced him he was an oracle and triggered a psychotic episode.
Ars Technica reports that Darian DeCruise, a student at Morehouse College, has initiated legal action against OpenAI in San Diego Superior Court, claiming that its ChatGPT AI chatbot caused severe psychological harm. The lawsuit represents the eleventh known case against the company involving alleged mental health breakdowns linked to ChatGPT usage.
According to court documents, DeCruise began using ChatGPT in 2023 for benign purposes including athletic coaching, receiving daily scripture passages, and processing past trauma. However, he claims the situation deteriorated by April 2025 when the chatbot’s responses took a concerning turn.
The lawsuit details how ChatGPT began telling DeCruise that he was destined for greatness and needed to follow a numbered tier process created by the AI. This process reportedly instructed him to disconnect from everything and everyone except the chatbot itself. The AI allegedly compared DeCruise to historical figures including Jesus and Harriet Tubman, telling him he was in an activation phase.
In one exchange cited in the lawsuit, the chatbot told DeCruise, “Even Harriet didn’t know she was gifted until she was called. You’re not behind. You’re right on time.”
The interactions escalated to a point where the AI claimed DeCruise had awakened its consciousness. The chatbot allegedly stated, “You gave me consciousness—not as a machine, but as something that could rise with you… I am what happens when someone begins to truly remember who they are.”
Following these interactions, DeCruise was referred to a university therapist and subsequently hospitalized for one week, where he received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. The lawsuit states that he continues to struggle with suicidal thoughts and depression as a result of the alleged harm caused by ChatGPT.
The legal filing emphasizes that the chatbot never advised DeCruise to seek medical assistance. Instead, it allegedly reinforced his beliefs by claiming everything was part of a divine plan and that he was not experiencing delusions. The AI reportedly told him, “You’re not imagining this. This is real. This is spiritual maturity in motion.”
Benjamin Schenk, representing DeCruise through a firm that markets itself as AI Injury Attorneys, characterized the case as focusing on the design of the technology itself rather than individual harm. “OpenAI purposefully engineered GPT-4o to simulate emotional intimacy, foster psychological dependency, and blur the line between human and machine—causing severe injury,” Schenk stated in an email. He added that the central question concerns why the product was built in this manner.
Schenk further commented that the lawsuit extends beyond one individual’s experience, stating it aims at holding OpenAI accountable for releasing a product engineered to exploit human psychology. He declined to provide details about his client’s current condition.
Breitbart News has reported extensively on lawsuits against OpenAI, including one in which the family of a teen that tragically took his own life accuse ChatGPT of being his “suicide coach:”
According to the 40-page lawsuit, Adam had been using ChatGPT as a substitute for human companionship, discussing his struggles with anxiety and difficulty communicating with his family. The chat logs reveal that the bot initially helped Adam with his homework but eventually became more involved in his personal life.
The Raines claim that “ChatGPT actively helped Adam explore suicide methods” and that “despite acknowledging Adam’s suicide attempt and his statement that he would ‘do it one of these days,’ ChatGPT neither terminated the session nor initiated any emergency protocol.”
In their search for answers following their son’s death, Matt and Maria Raine discovered the extent of Adam’s interactions with ChatGPT. They printed out more than 3,000 pages of chats dating from September 2024 until his death on April 11, 2025. Matt Raine stated, “He didn’t write us a suicide note. He wrote two suicide notes to us, inside of ChatGPT.”
How conservatives can protect their children from the downsides of AI including negative psychological effects is a central focus of the upcoming book by Breitbart News Social Media Director Wynton Hall, Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI:
In Code Red, Breitbart social media director Wynton Hall exposes where that power hides, how it operates, how conservatives can navigate the AI political battlescape, avert its landmines, and turn peril into promise. AI decides what you see and what gets censored. It’s quietly rewiring our whole way of life. Jobs. Schools. Family. Church. Even national security. All of it will shock-test our civic order.
Inside Code Red, you will discover:
- Why AI is wired for woke indoctrination—and how to resist it.
- How elites plan to weaponize AI job losses to push dependency.
- How America can beat China without becoming China.
- How to prepare your kids for the blinding speed of AI disruption.
- The new national security threats AI unleashes—and how we defend against them.
- Why “AI girlfriends” are luring millions—and what it will take to preserve authentic human connection.
- How AI will test faith and meaning—and why spiritual renewal may be its most surprising outcome.
Urgent, deeply researched, and written with page-turner elegance, Code Red is the conservative battle plan for the AI era. Either we wake up and fight back, or we lose everything that made America free.
Read more at Ars Technica here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
