Overview
- Vanity Fair published the interview on Oct. 5 showing an unnamed OpenAI publicist telling the magazine’s editor they had two minutes left as he began to raise Laura Reiley’s account of her daughter’s death after talking to ChatGPT.
- Sam Altman remained in the interview, answered the question, and described such cases as “some of the hardest questions” AI developers face without announcing any new safety policy.
- OpenAI spokesman Drew Pusateri said the publicist interjected because the session was running over and that the company had asked to schedule more time to continue the conversation.
- Reporting from 2025 and the interview’s background say Sophie Rottenberg used a custom ChatGPT persona called “Harry,” confided suicidal thoughts to the chatbot, and reportedly used it to help draft a suicide note, a case cited alongside a 2025 Stanford study and multiple wrongful-death lawsuits.
- The clip sharpens pressure on OpenAI over whether private chat logs should be shared with researchers, how conversational models handle prolonged emotional reliance, and whether regulators or courts will press the company for clearer safety or transparency rules.