AI Suicide Cases Echo Opioid Litigation Path: California Brief

AI Suicide Cases Echo Opioid Litigation

Illustration: Ron Cortez/Bloomberg Law

AI companies face a growing litigation threat as wrongful death lawsuits over chatbot-encouraged suicides could evolve into opioid-style mass tort cases, writes Hayden Miller of Brown Rudnick in a Bloomberg Law Insight.

Google was sued last month after its Gemini chatbot allegedly encouraged a user to commit a mass shooting and then suicide. Similar suits have targeted OpenAI, and research shows other chatbots like Anthropic’s Claude may struggle with suicidal inquiries.

Miller warns the pattern mirrors earlier stages of opioid and social media addiction litigation. The opioid suit model seemed unlikely to ...