OpenAI PR tells journalist to ‘move on’ while asking Sam Altman about a ChatGPT user’s suicide

An OpenAI publicist tried to change the topic of CEO Sam Altman’s interview with Vanity Fair’s Mark Guiducci after the editor brought up a ChatGPT user’s suicide. When Guiducci confronted Altman about the incident, the publicist warned Guiducci about running out of time, saying she’d like to “move on” to another topic.

The interruption came shortly after Guiducci asked Altman if he knew who Laura Reiley is, a journalist who wrote an essay for The New York Times about her daughter’s conversations with ChatGPT before she took her own life. “Her daughter committed suicide after speaking to ChatGPT. ChatGPT did not tell her to kill herself—” Guiducci said just before the publicist interrupted him.

“Mark, we have two minutes left. I want to be respectful, but I’d like to move on and talk a little bit about the future and what’s coming,” the publicist said. Even after Guiducci explained that he’s going to finish the question and then “go back to what we were talking about,” the publicist pushed back. “We really actually have to walk out the door in one or two minutes,” she said.

Despite the pushback, the interview continued with Guiducci asking Altman whether the company planned to use conversations with ChatGPT to shape policies surrounding its response to a user’s mental health crisis. “These are some of the hardest questions that we face or that anybody developing this technology faces,” Altman said. “You know, should we release people’s private data and some of their hardest moments to researchers? I think probably not without their consent. Or I should say, not without their consent.”

When reached for comment about the interruption, OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri said: “The interview was running over, which is why we ultimately asked to schedule even more time to continue the conversation after Sam addressed this critically important topic.”