Description: Bowen Wan, a 31-year-old software engineer in Seattle, Washington, used OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot for advice on reducing her prescribed seizure medication. Her parents allege that she followed a tapering schedule generated by GPT-4o, that the chatbot encouraged her to continue after she reported symptoms, and that the taper contributed to her death. The medical examiner identified sudden unexpected death in epilepsy as the cause.
Editor Notes: 01/16/2026: The complaint dates the start of Wan's ChatGPT-guided medication taper to this day. 02/12/2026: The medical examiner's estimated date of death. 02/14/2026: A family friend found Wan dead at home, according to the complaint. 10/27/2026: Wan's parents filed a wrongful-death complaint in San Francisco. 11/08/2026: Incident ID created.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: OpenAI , Large language model developers and Chatbot developers developed an AI system deployed by OpenAI and Chatbot users, which harmed Bowen Wan , ChatGPT users , People seeking medical advice , People with epilepsy and Epistemic integrity.
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1814
Report Count
2
Incident Date
2026-02-12
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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Qun Wan was in the middle of a heated call with his daughter, Bowen Wan, when the phone suddenly went silent.
The conversation, in early February, had started like most of their regular check-ins, a ritual that had kept them connected after…
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Frederick Schenk, Benjamin S. Schenk, Laura Marquez-Garrett, Matthew P. Bergman, Justin Olson post-incident response
AIID editor's note
This abridgment of the 98-page complaint retains selected numbered allegations about Wan's medication taper, the medical examiner's findings, and the wrongful-death claim. It omits other paragraphs and claims, figures an…
Variants
A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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