A former pastor is suing OpenAI over flawed medical advice that its ChatGPT chatbot allegedly gave him in 2025.
The lawsuit was filed in San Francisco County Superior Court on Wednesday by Scott Winters, a 55-year-old resident of Florida who is represented by the nonprofit Tech Justice Law and other tech-focused legal advocates.
According to the suit’s claims, ChatGPT discouraged Winters from seeking medical treatment while he was experiencing symptoms leading up to a pulmonary embolism—a blockage in an artery in the lungs that can be life-threatening.
The incident took place last year when Winters, who had been experiencing “recurring dizzy spells and bouts of blood pressure instability,” turned to OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4o model to try to make sense of what was happening.
According to the suit, the chatbot diminished the severity of Winters’s symptoms, telling him that he’d need to experience eight to 10 more episodes for the issue to be emergent.
“You’re nowhere near the count or depth that leads to long-term total bedbound scenarios . . . your current careful recliner-based micro-recovery is exactly what’s buying your future,” the chatbot allegedly told him, essentially urging him to stay immobile.
Weeks later, Winters turned to the bot again when he was experiencing “odd twinges” in different areas of his body as well as “tenderness in his groin” that worried him.
While the chatbot told him the symptoms were “not something dangerous,” in reality he was hours away from a major medical episode, the suit claims.
The chatbot also asserted that “God did not design your body to endlessly fail,” along with making other statements that seemed to draw on his religious beliefs.
The same day, Winters called 911 and was brought to the hospital as he was losing consciousness and experiencing “violent convulsions” in the midst of a pulmonary embolism.
According to the suit, one of Winters’s doctors blamed his immobility for the condition, which had been urged by ChatGPT.
Fast Company reached out to OpenAI for comment, but did not immediately hear back. Drew Pusateri, a spokesperson for the company, told CBS News that “ChatGPT is not a doctor and should never be used as a substitute for medical care, diagnosis or treatment.”
Dr. ChatGPT will see you now
The lawsuit, filed this week, comes as OpenAI is encouraging more users to connect their health data to ChatGPT. On Thursday, the company said it was rolling out its “Health in ChatGPT” feature to users in the United States.
Health in ChatGPT, the company explained in its announcement, asks users to connect their Apple Health information and medical records to the bot. The service was first unveiled for early access in January.
The lawsuit is not the first to hit OpenAI over health-related advice. In another lawsuit filed earlier this year, a family alleged that their son died accidentally after ChatGPT coached him into mixing Xanax with an herbal supplement and ingesting it. Tech Justice Law is also representing the plaintiffs in that case.
More than 300 million people seek health information on ChatGPT each week, OpenAI’s announcement said this week, even as it says that integrating your health data is aimed at “supporting, not replacing, the care” individuals “receive from medical professionals.”
In addition to seeking financial damages and stronger guardrails on AI’s medical advice, Winters is also asking for ChatGPT’s new Health integration service to be blocked.
