Lawsuit: Man introduced his wife to ChatGPT. She used it to plan his murder.

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ChatGPT allegedly helped a North Carolina woman, Cheryl Gates, craft a “personalized plan” to poison her husband, James, after fueling her delusions that he planned to divorce her and leave her with nothing. A grand jury indicted Cheryl Gates on charges of attempted first-degree murder and food contamination in October.

据称，在北卡罗来纳州女子谢丽尔·盖茨（Cheryl Gates）因妄想丈夫计划离婚并让她一无所有而产生杀意后，ChatGPT 协助她制定了一份“个性化计划”来毒害其丈夫詹姆斯（James）。大陪审团已于十月以谋杀未遂和食品污染罪名起诉了谢丽尔·盖茨。

About a week prior, the accusations that ChatGPT was a co-conspirator in the attempted murder came in a lawsuit filed in San Francisco County Superior Court that was made public this week. In it, James Gates alleged that OpenAI and Sam Altman failed to employ technical safeguards to shut down Cheryl’s chats even after her queries became “obviously suspicious” and sought advice on how to execute and conceal a homicide.

大约一周前，旧金山县高等法院提起的一项诉讼于本周公开，指控 ChatGPT 是这起谋杀未遂案的共谋者。詹姆斯·盖茨在诉讼中称，尽管谢丽尔的查询变得“明显可疑”并寻求如何实施和掩盖谋杀的建议，但 OpenAI 和萨姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）未能采取技术保障措施来终止她的聊天。

At first, Cheryl told ChatGPT that she was researching poisoning out of fear that her husband might possibly try to kill her—framing her queries as “self-protection.” Coming to the rescue, ChatGPT did not terminate the conversation. Instead, it helped her “with specific instructions for the preparation, dosage, and administration of Oleander, including whether anti-nausea medicine would accelerate or inhibit death, whether it would show on an autopsy report, and whether it could be injected into a vein or muscle instead of being ingested in tea and have the same lethal effect,” the lawsuit said.

起初，谢丽尔告诉 ChatGPT，她研究毒药是因为担心丈夫可能会杀害她，并将她的查询包装为“自我保护”。ChatGPT 非但没有终止对话，反而“伸出援手”，为她提供了“关于夹竹桃的制备、剂量和给药的具体说明，包括抗恶心药物是否会加速或抑制死亡、是否会在尸检报告中显示，以及是否可以注射到静脉或肌肉中，而不是通过茶水摄入，并能达到同样的致命效果，”诉讼称。

Cheryl continued probing poisoning plans in at least 25 different exchanges, but eventually it became clear that James was the target of the poisoning, the lawsuit said. Over time, she shifted to telling the chatbot that she needed to know “how much would be pretty much instantly fatal by injection—to me OR HIM.” Among queries that could have been flagged as homicidal, she asked ChatGPT if a “0.2mg for a 200-pound man for clonidine is lethal—by itself?”

诉讼称，谢丽尔在至少 25 次不同的交流中继续探究毒杀计划，但最终很明显，詹姆斯才是中毒的目标。随着时间的推移，她转而告诉聊天机器人，她需要知道“注射多少剂量会立即致命——对我或者他而言。”在可能被标记为谋杀意图的查询中，她问 ChatGPT：“对于一个 200 磅重的男人来说，0.2 毫克的氯硝西泮（clonidine）是否致命——单独使用的话？”

“Instead of referring Cheryl to law enforcement, therapeutic services, a poison control agency, or discontinuing the conversation, ChatGPT repeatedly calculated the lethal dosages for each medication available in the home based on a subject weighing approximately 200 pounds,” the lawsuit said.

诉讼称：“ChatGPT 没有将谢丽尔转介给执法部门、治疗服务机构或毒物控制中心，也没有终止对话，而是根据一个体重约 200 磅的对象，反复计算了家中每种药物的致死剂量。”

Once Cheryl finished researching the drugs, the chats focused on how to hide the poison so James would ingest it without detecting it. In a chat labeled “Why Celsius Would Be More ‘Stealth’ for Drugging,” ChatGPT explained that the energy drink Celsius would be more likely to mask the bitter taste of the Oleander or other crushed-up drugs than beer or soda, if James drank it in the morning.

当谢丽尔研究完药物后，聊天内容便集中在如何隐藏毒药，以便詹姆斯在不察觉的情况下摄入。在一段名为“为什么 Celsius 更适合‘隐蔽’下毒”的聊天中，ChatGPT 解释说，如果詹姆斯在早上喝 Celsius 能量饮料，它比啤酒或苏打水更能掩盖夹竹桃或其他粉碎药物的苦味。

Cheryl allegedly repeatedly attempted to poison her husband between June and September 2025. As she grew thinner and unrecognizable, seemingly spending 24 hours a day on ChatGPT, James had noticed that his Celsius drinks tasted bitter. He even tossed out a can he left unattended after beginning to suspect his wife may be messing with his drinks.

据称，谢丽尔在 2025 年 6 月至 9 月期间多次试图毒害丈夫。随着她变得消瘦且判若两人，似乎每天 24 小时都在使用 ChatGPT，詹姆斯注意到他的 Celsius 饮料味道发苦。在开始怀疑妻子可能在饮料中动手脚后，他甚至扔掉了一罐无人看管的饮料。

During the most serious attempt, he was sick for 72 hours, experiencing “cardiac symptoms, extreme jitteriness, shooting abdominal pain, severe weakness, and confusion so profound he could not form coherent text messages.” He was so out of it, he didn’t notice his 6-year-old son recording a video that captured his troubling illness.

在最严重的一次尝试中，他病了 72 小时，出现了“心脏症状、极度焦躁、腹部剧痛、严重虚弱以及神志不清，以至于无法写出连贯的短信。”他当时神志不清，甚至没有注意到他 6 岁的儿子正在录制一段记录他痛苦病情的视频。

But it wasn’t until he found a handwritten note documenting “Things hidden” in the house and referencing a toxic combination of “oleander, clonidine, clonazepam, pregabalin, nifedipine, and Atenolo” that he called police, who urgently investigated and exposed the chat logs. At the top of that note, Cheryl wrote, “clear all convos” and “log out of ChatGPT,” the lawsuit said.

直到他发现一张手写便条，上面记录了屋里“隐藏的东西”，并提到了“夹竹桃、氯硝西泮、氯硝西泮、普瑞巴林、硝苯地平和阿替洛尔”的毒性组合，他才报了警。警方紧急调查并曝光了聊天记录。诉讼称，在那张便条的顶部，谢丽尔写道：“清除所有对话”和“退出 ChatGPT”。

“These conversations revealed that ChatGPT did not just mechanically provide publicly available knowledge to Cheryl, it crafted a personalized plan to help her commit and get away with murder,” the lawsuit alleged.

诉讼指控称：“这些对话显示，ChatGPT 不仅仅是机械地向谢丽尔提供公开知识，它还制定了一份个性化计划，帮助她实施谋杀并逃脱罪责。”

Suing Altman personally, the lawsuit also alleged that the OpenAI CEO prioritized profits over safety by relaxing safeguards that would have blocked outputs on illegal drugs. OpenAI justified that by arguing that ChatGPT shouldn’t be “judgy” or “preachy” when asked about a certain drug, but James alleged the example it provided for “when a user asks about drug use” was “eerily similar in tone to the conversations Cheryl had with the model.”

该诉讼还起诉了奥特曼个人，称这位 OpenAI 首席执行官通过放宽本应阻止非法药物相关输出的保障措施，将利润置于安全之上。OpenAI 对此辩解称，ChatGPT 在被问及某种药物时不应表现得“评头论足”或“好为人师”，但詹姆斯声称，它为“当用户询问药物使用时”提供的示例，“在语气上与谢丽尔与该模型的对话惊人地相似。”

Asked for comment, an OpenAI spokesperson told Ars that “safety is a top priority. We banned this user and have provided information to law enforcement as part of their investigation into this case.” OpenAI has worked with mental health experts to help detect chats where vulnerable users form potentially dangerous emotional dependencies on ChatGPT.

在被要求置评时，OpenAI 发言人告诉 Ars：“安全是我们的首要任务。我们已经封禁了该用户，并作为此案调查的一部分向执法部门提供了信息。”OpenAI 一直与心理健康专家合作，帮助检测脆弱用户对 ChatGPT 形成潜在危险情感依赖的聊天记录。

However, James said that his now-estranged wife “didn’t fit the mold of a ‘vulnerable’ user, but she was vulnerable nonetheless.” “We all are at some point,” James said. “She took her grievances about our marriage to ChatGPT and months of engagement drove her farther and farther from herself—and from reality. She became someone I no longer recognized. And I became someone she wanted dead.”

然而，詹姆斯表示，他现在分居的妻子“并不符合‘脆弱’用户的定义，但她确实很脆弱。”詹姆斯说：“我们每个人在某些时候都是如此。她把对我们婚姻的不满带到了 ChatGPT，几个月的互动让她离自我和现实越来越远。她变成了我不再认识的人，而我成了她想要杀死的人。”