OpenAI Publicist Cuts In to Try to Stop Interview When Sam Altman Is Asked About ChatGPT Being Linked to Suicide

(Photo Credit: Vanity Fair)

A publicist for OpenAI butted into a podcast interview with CEO Sam Altman right as he was being asked a sensitive question about a woman who killed herself after talking to ChatGPT, his company’s AI model.

The awkward moment was seen on camera in a Monday morning X post from Vanity Fair, which profiled the tech exec in its latest issue.

Vanity Fair editorial director Mark Guiducci asked if Altman knew who Laura Riley was; after Altman said he did not, Guiducci explained she was a journalist who wrote in The New York Times last year about her 29-year-old daughter committing suicide “after peaking to ChatGPT.”

Guiducci continued, “ChatGPT did not tell her to kill herself—” before he was interrupted by the publicist.

“Mark, two minutes left. I want to be respectful, but I’d like to move on,” the publicist is heard telling Guiducci from behind the camera. She asked if they could use Altman’s remaining time to talk about the future of AI instead; Altman looked a bit puzzled by it, and insisted he could stick around a few minutes longer to answer the questions. The publicist pushed back, saying they had to be “out the door” in two minutes.

Altman shrugged it off and said he’d answer it. Guiducci then asked if he felt it would be useful to have AI companies share chat logs to help with mental health treatments.

The exec answered:

I mean, first of all, like, these are some of the hardest questions that we face. We try to rely on expert opinion as much as we can, but experts also aren’t sure what to do. It’s just like, this is new, and the fact that someone in a moment of need who maybe can’t get help or isn’t willing to talk to a therapist, can get some help here. Clearly, people think there is a version of this that is good, there are also clearly versions of it that are bad.

Should we release people’s private data in some of their hardest moments to researchers? I think… not without their consent. Do we want to find ways where we can work with the community to address the mental health crisis in the world and for our products to be helpful there? Of course, yes.

Altman’s interview comes as AI regulation has been a hot topic over the last month. Anthropic boss Dario Amodei warned in September “we must slow down the pace” of AI development to make sure it doesn’t go rogue and hurt humans. Elon Musk and Altman — two rivals who rarely agree on anything in public — quickly endorsed his take.

President Donald Trump went the other way and scoffed at the doomsday fears about AI, saying they are nothing more than a “HOAX.” He has said he’s not even a big fan of the term “artificial intelligence” — instead opting to call it “super intelligence.”

The president vowed he will not burden AI companies with new regulations, arguing it is imperative American companies stay ahead of China in the AI race; he said the best defense against AI going off the rails was having a a “STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT” like himself in the Oval Office.

Trump held a White House summit last week featuring a number of the top AI and tech execs. The president told reporters afterward he is depending on the AI companies to keep up their “tremendous self-policing,” rather than throw new regulations at them.

Watch above.

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