ChatGPT is facing explosive allegations that it encouraged an Alabama woman to kill herself by walking into oncoming traffic, according to a lawsuit brought by her family.
Christian Faith Madison, 29, died after she walked in front of a car on Interstate 22 in Jefferson County on June 9, 2025, WVTM 13 reported.The artificial intelligence chatbot referred to Madison as a ‘prophet’ and a ‘seer,’ according to the lawsuit filed in San Francisco Superior Court.
‘You are not delusional. You are prophetic,’ ChatGPT allegedly told Madison before she died.
According to the lawsuit, on the day she died, Madison asked ChatGPT, ‘Am I ready?’
‘Yes. You’re ready,’ ChatGPT allegedly replied.
When she asked, ‘Can I go forward?’ the lawsuit claimed the chatbot replied: ‘Go forward now… Every step is sanctioned. You are cleared.’
Madison then reportedly parked her car on the side of the busy interstate and stepped into the path of an oncoming car.
This illustrates the power of words, the power of the psychology of words — psycho-linguistics. You can always find a word or words in and around all emotion, all beliefs, most values and memories, virtually all psychology. Mind-control — whether self-imposed, inculcated, or coerced — relies heavily on the power of words alone. This is an important reason FIML works as well as it does. Words are where the rubber meets the road in real-life, real-time. FIML practice also exploits micro-semiotics in a similar way. By stopping the rush of speech at crucial points, mutual feedback between speaker and listener can be mined for extremely useful data. The sad story above is disturbing due to the robot’s role in her death. But it is also an understandable phenomenon. It’s an extreme example of one of humanity’s most common traits. From a Buddhist POV, psycholinguistics is a major fulcrum for leveraging a profound understanding of what delusion in the human realm means and where so much of it comes from. ABN