Pastor Scott Winters was in the middle of giving a sermon at his Florida church when he claimed to have experienced such a strong bout of dizziness that he needed to stop delivering his message and take a breather.
It was the latest recurrence of ongoing health issues that Winters allegedly began experiencing in 2024. After the episode, Winters said he turned to what had become a trusted source of advice: ChatGPT. “Take it easy,” the chatbot allegedly suggested.
It was ChatGPT’s “extremely dangerous” medical advice along these lines that led Winter to delay seeking professional care for what was later determined to be a pulmonary embolism, according to a lawsuit Winters filed against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, the New York Times reported.
The lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in California, accuses the company of negligence, as well as practicing medicine “unauthorized” because ChatGPT allegedly attempted to diagnose Winters and cooked up treatment plans for him.
Up until Winters sought care at a hospital in June 2025, Winters claimed the chatbot fed him lines like his symptoms were “not something dangerous” and that “God did not design your body to endlessly fail,” according to the Times. When Winters voiced concern about people thinking he was “crazy for not going to the hospital,” the lawsuit alleged the chatbot reassured Winters that “most people (including well-meaning church members) simply don’t understand” the help it was purportedly providing him.
In a statement to Rolling Stone, company spokesperson Drew Pusateri said in part that “ChatGPT is not a doctor and should never be used as a substitute for medical care, diagnosis, or treatment.” However, Pusateri countered, “treating chatbots as the whole story behind people’s medical decisions or outcomes oversimplifies a much bigger challenge, and risks getting in the way of people accessing powerful new tools that can aid them in their health journey.”
Rolling Stone has reached out to Winters’ representatives for further comment.
Winters’ case is among the growing number of lawsuits against OpenAI. Last year, a family sued the company for wrongful death and the unauthorized practice of medicine in wake of their 16-year-old son dying by suicide after ChatGPT allegedly “coached” him into the act. In May, another family sued OpenAI when their 19-year-old suffered a fatal drug overdose after receiving medical advice from the chatbot.
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