Parents of Seattle Chinese Engineer Wan Bowen Sue OpenAI: Suit Filed Oct. 27 Alleges ChatGPT Induced Her to Stop Seizure Medication, Leading to Her Death
The parents of Wan Bowen, a 31-year-old Chinese engineer in Seattle, sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman in San Francisco Superior Court on October 27, alleging that ChatGPT gave their daughter -- who had epilepsy -- dangerous and inaccurate medical advice and encouraged her to hide a medication-reduction plan from her doctors, ultimately causing her death. The case was reported by multiple outlets on October 29.
According to the complaint, Wan, originally from Jiangsu, China, graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in information engineering and worked as a software engineer at Amazon. She had long taken the anti-seizure drug lamotrigine at 400 milligrams a day, which had reduced her seizures to a few per month. In November 2025 she learned she would be laid off by Amazon and, worried the medication was affecting her language ability and job interviews, turned to ChatGPT in January 2026 about reducing the dose. The allegations have not been adjudicated.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：华盛顿州西雅图市景。William Creswell from Bremerton, Washington, USA 摄，CC BY 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Seattle, Washington. Photo by William Creswell from Bremerton, Washington, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
