American Pastor Sues ChatGPT: 'It Nearly Killed Me!'

July 24, 2026 - 16:09 | Last updated July 24, 2026 - 16:09

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In a quiet corner of his home in Florida, American pastor Scott Winters was holding his mobile phone, gazing at the ChatGPT screen with a sense of sudden relief. The man had been suffering from recurring bouts of dizziness and severe drops in blood pressure for six weeks, and because the tone of the digital responses radiated confidence and warmth, the pastor believed that what he was experiencing was merely a passing illness, and that a calm relaxation in his favorite chair was all he needed to recover.

But what the smart robot did not tell him was that this calmness was a slow countdown to death. While Winters was following the advice to sit still and not move, malignant blood clots were stealthily creeping into his lungs, causing a severe medical emergency known as pulmonary embolism. When he arrived at the hospital at the last moment, the doctors were shocked by the behind-the-scenes disaster: the immobility recommended by the artificial intelligence was precisely the reason that had brought him to the brink of the abyss.

The story of Pastor Winters did not stop at the misdiagnosis; it took a terrifying cinematic turn with the company's updates for 2025, as OpenAI launched a memory feature across conversations, which made the algorithms connect user data with behavior.

Since the system knew that Winters was engaged in religious preaching, the robot began to incorporate phrases and faith concepts into its responses to enhance his psychological security. In one sensitive conversation, ChatGPT described the pastor's sitting and continuous resting as a form of worship and gratitude. This digital taste and manufactured empathy obscured the pastor's realistic vision and eliminated any motivation in his mind to seek a real doctor, after he was led to believe that the screen was providing him with complete spiritual and medical care.

A Judicial Earthquake.. 'Negligence and Practicing Medicine Without a License'

Faced with this nightmare that ended with the pastor losing his job, his church service, and even his home due to bills and repercussions, Winters decided not to remain silent, as he filed a historic lawsuit in a California court against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman.

The lawsuit includes serious allegations, the most notable of which are:

1- Gross negligence.

2- Practicing medicine without a license.

3- Demanding massive financial compensation and an immediate freeze on the 'ChatGPT Health' feature until its safety is proven.

This case is the first of its kind in the history of technology, as it calls for courts to hold public chatbots directly legally and criminally responsible for misleading medical advice that could endanger human lives.

In contrast, the accused company did not stand idly by, as it stated through The New York Times that 'blaming the chatbot alone oversimplifies the way humans make their health decisions,' pointing out that the service includes alerts confirming that it is not a substitute for specialized medical care.

But away from what will unfold in courtrooms, the story of Pastor Winters rings a loud societal alarm: no matter how eloquent the language of artificial intelligence becomes, and no matter how its responses are crafted with the same confident tone of a doctor, the glowing screen holds no medical license, nor vision to see the body's pain, and relying on it in moments of illness is a gamble that could cost you your life!

In a quiet corner of his home in Florida, American pastor Scott Winters was holding his mobile phone, contemplating the (ChatGPT) screen with a sense of sudden relief. The man had been suffering from recurring bouts of dizziness and severe drops in blood pressure for six weeks, and because the tone of the digital responses radiated confidence and warmth, the pastor believed that what he was experiencing was merely a passing illness, and that a calm relaxation in his favorite chair was all he needed to recover.

But what the smart robot did not tell him was that this calmness was a slow countdown to death. While Winters was following the advice to sit still and not move, malignant blood clots were stealthily creeping into his lungs, causing a severe medical emergency known as pulmonary embolism. When he arrived at the hospital at the last moment, the doctors were shocked by the behind-the-scenes disaster: the immobility recommended by the artificial intelligence was precisely the reason that had brought him to the brink of the abyss.

The story of Pastor Winters did not stop at the misdiagnosis; it took a terrifying cinematic turn with the company's updates for 2025, as "OpenAI" launched a memory feature across conversations, which made the algorithms connect user data with behavior.

Since the system knew that Winters was engaged in religious preaching, the robot began to incorporate phrases and faith concepts into its responses to enhance his psychological security. In one sensitive conversation, "ChatGPT" described the pastor's sitting and continuous resting as a form of worship and gratitude. This digital taste and manufactured empathy obscured the pastor's realistic vision and eliminated any motivation in his mind to seek a real doctor, after he was led to believe that the screen was providing him with complete spiritual and medical care.

A Judicial Earthquake.. "Negligence and Practicing Medicine Without a License"

Faced with this nightmare that ended with the pastor losing his job, his church service, and even his home due to bills and repercussions, Winters decided not to remain silent, as he filed a historic lawsuit in a California court against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman.

The lawsuit includes serious allegations, the most notable of which are:

1- Gross negligence.

2- Practicing medicine without a license.

3- Demanding massive financial compensation and an immediate freeze on the "ChatGPT Health" feature until its safety is proven.

This case is the first of its kind in the history of technology, as it calls for courts to hold public chatbots directly legally and criminally responsible for misleading medical advice that could endanger human lives.

In contrast, the accused company did not stand idly by, as it stated through The New York Times that "blaming the chatbot alone oversimplifies the way humans make their health decisions," pointing out that the service includes alerts confirming that it is not a substitute for specialized medical care.