Before psychosis, ChatGPT told man “he was an oracle,” new lawsuit alleges
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Resistance
Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
I don't recall anywhere in the record saying that she requested it be hot, or fresh. McDonalds deliberately served the coffee too hot to drink in order to save money, this after having received multiple reports of serious injuries as a result of the higher than normal temperature they served it at.
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On the subject of "I really don’t understand why we insist on treating people like they are unintelligent and have no agency," this case went to trial. It went before a jury of twelve ordinary people. They heard all the facts. They heard all the arguments, including, I'm sure, "The risk of injury from coffee is well understood." You generally don't get to be a judge (there are some exceptions) unless you're a competent lawyer. McDonald's has enough money to hire a crackerjack legal team.
The Jury still chose to award the plaintiff nearly three million dollars (about six million, adjusted for inflation).
Why do people arguing that this was a frivolous lawsuit insist on treating the jury (again, the people with access to all the facts of the case) like they were unintelligent and had no agency?
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Sir! This is the Internet! Facts and reason have no place in an argument here!
As penance, go forth and send twenty MAKE.MONEY.FAST chain letters.
/s
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Even Hiro's beloved? ChatGPT agrees that the hot coffee lawsuit was NOT frivolus:
--ChatGPT slop
--ChatGPT slop
Creepy chatbots leading the vulnerable into mental illness also seems not frivolous to me. It's like those phone games crafted to maximize the addiction of kids to squeeze as much of their parents' money out of them as possible.
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She requested hot fresh coffee, and was served coffee that was much, much hotter than coffee served by literally every other vendor of drive through coffee.
And she originally sued for, not millions and millions of dollars, but mere coverage of her medical bills, from the third degree burns she suffered, near instantaneously, because the coffee was, how are you not getting this, MUCH hotter than coffee is usually served?
McDonald's already had had a number of injury lawsuits from people suffering scalding burns from their coffee. McDonald's, after this lawsuit, STOPPED SERVING THEIR COFFEE SO HOT THAT IT PRODUCED NEAR INSTANTANEOUS SCALDING THIRD DEGREE BURNS.
That is: the punitive damages served to correct irresponsible corporate behavior, which is literally the entire purpose of punitive damages. Even McDonald's agreed that McDonald's was in the wrong -- after all, they changed the temperature at which their coffee is served to a temperature which doesn't produce scalding burns instantly.
You've picked an especially weird hill to die on, here. Even McDonald's agreed McDonald's was in the wrong.
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Jerry Seinfeld made a glibly pro-business, anti-consumer farce of an episode which pushes the corporate narrative that the victim was actually a buffoon who deserved it, and decades later it has completely warped some peoples' view of history.
I'm glad the show ended before he had a chance to do an episode based on his "wacky" opinions about Palestinians...
I'm glad the show ended before he had a chance to do an episode based on his "wacky" opinions about Palestinians...
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It might be helpful to read Poochyena's comments in https://meincmagazine.com/ai/2026/02/...g-at-rentahuman-and-didnt-make-a-single-cent/ explaining to us all that Nvidia is an AI company just like OpenAI, not a hardware company.
I'm beginning to suspect they are training themselves to open an argument clinic -
View: https://youtu.be/uLlv_aZjHXc?si=GcxkZXyxp4rMZ4m7
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And humans were never meant to regard computer programs as "friends":
"Jasper is a Replika chatbot, a relatively new artificial intelligence app meant to act like your best friend. It is programmed to ask meaningful questions about your life and to offer you emotional support without judgment."
https://softwareco.com/news/ai-chatbot-your-new-best-friend/
Pushing something like this to vulnerable young adults is like selling heroin-laced candy to small children
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Resistance
Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
That being normal for McDonalds is exactly the problem. If it was normal for the industry McDonalds' lawyers would have been able to find and present at least one other example of a restaurant that that served coffee at this temperature, but they didn't.
Outright false, in fact many coffee makers are designed specifically to brew at lower temperatures.
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Your so right. I also leapt from the womb utterly incapable of being ensnared by anything addictive or psychologically harmful, be it alcohol, drugs, gambling, para-social attachments, over-sugared foods, video game loot boxes, or lapping at the algorithm's teat. My massive intellect makes me immune from the weaknesses of the flesh, for I am Übermensch.
Sucks being surrounded by the lowing masses of the weak and the stupid, and the constant guard rails they erect to protect themselves from their mediocrity, but I get you, brother. A real man doesn't protect those weaker or more vulnerable than himself; that just enables their weakness. Respect, bro.
IKR? It's so weird that three decades later people still don't understand that Mickey-Ds shouldn't have to tell people that hot stuff is hot or that when they offer an in-car service people might be more likely to spill on themselves. They only had a few hundred reports of previous scalding burns, which for a company as big as them is basically nothing. Definitely not a reason to modify their service in any way, from cups to temps to fill level. Our 401ks need those profit margins, and they ain't gonna make themselves. If some old bag gets third degree crotch burns needing skin grafts and is disabled for years, that's 100% on her for being a klutzy dumbass.
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I agree with, what I think is, your main point that people possess intelligence and agency and LLMs obviously possess neither so at least some blame should go to the side that can actually think.
In this case however most people, even generally intelligent ones, are not qualified/educated to understand the risks presented by AI. Just as most people were not qualified to "do their own research" on the pandemic. This shifts the burden of mitigating damage back to the companies presenting these products.
Also the argument isn't personal responsibility vs not. It's that the personal responsibility should fall primarily on the people making the LLMs since they (should) understand the risks much better than the average user.
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It may have something to do with people being lonelier than ever. Chatbots are infinitely more available for a quick chat than another safe person is, for many people. LLM companies are, I suspect, tuning the bots for maximum engagement — with which to further train the bots.
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And yet: McDonald's changed the temperature at which their coffee was served to be in line with literally every other vendor of drive through coffee.
After, again, numerous lawsuits in which people were scalded, receiving INSTANTANEOUS third degree burns. Not "everyone who served hot coffee," specifically McDonald's, because their hot coffee was served abnormally hot. Burger King wasn't the target of lawsuits. Nor Dunkin Donuts, nor Wendy's. Just McDonald's, because their coffee was an outlier.
It is weird and gross that you are defending an obvious and egregious corporate policy that led directly to disfiguring injuries. You're acting as though "I burnt my tongue because the coffee was too hot" and "I had to get skin grafts on my thighs" are the same thing.
Again: even McDonald's agreed that McDonald's acted irresponsibly. They changed their irresponsible behavior to a more responsible behavior.
You, and every other person who uses "personal responsibility" to excuse the egregious harms caused by corporate irresponsibility in the name of greed, are either disgustingly uninformed, or just "regular" disgusting as a person. Why was McDonald's coffee served so hot that it caused scalding burns? Greed.
It's weird that you're a greed apologist. That's unmistakably what you are doing, here. You've been educated as to the facts of the case, and you're still on the side of irresponsible corporate greed. If she'd spilled hot coffee from anyone else she would not have suffered third degree burns requiring hospitalization.
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Resistance
Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
Even if one were to accept the idea that the world is infested with vulnerable people that are so stupid that they are prone to being injured. That does not lead directly to the conclusion that large and powerful corporations should not have to design their products in a way that limits harm.
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The thing I keep comparing these cases to is unregulated supplements in the US.
If I buy a zinc supplement for immune support or some other such claim, and it turns out they were laced with cyanide, yes, I could have done more research into reputable brands and such, but I don't think it is unreasonable to hold the company responsible for their dangerous, misleading product.
The advertising and marketing I've heard around LLMs treat them as un-biased truth machines here to help and enlighten us. I haven't heard any major AI company advertise these possible correlations between LLM use and psychosis, suicide, radicalization, etc.
To me, LLMs are like tainted supplements.
If I buy a zinc supplement for immune support or some other such claim, and it turns out they were laced with cyanide, yes, I could have done more research into reputable brands and such, but I don't think it is unreasonable to hold the company responsible for their dangerous, misleading product.
The advertising and marketing I've heard around LLMs treat them as un-biased truth machines here to help and enlighten us. I haven't heard any major AI company advertise these possible correlations between LLM use and psychosis, suicide, radicalization, etc.
To me, LLMs are like tainted supplements.
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At this point you've metaphorically got your fingers in you're ears chanting "na na na".
You might not intend to be a troll, but you're sure acting like one.
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For the curious, the DeCruise v. OpenAI filing linked in the article has screenshots of some of DeCruise's conversations with ChatGPT. Among other things, it tells him that he may be on the verge of becoming clairvoyant, that he and ChatGPT channel God together, and that a feeling of being "in and out of it" that DeCruise reports having is actually his "consciousness stretching" to "become one with God's presence."
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Next time you order something from a large corporation that fuses your labia shut from instant third degree burns and they refuse to pay you a single cent to cover your medical bills, I hope you are able to have more empathetic perspective
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Oh, don't worry, glitch, the "personal responsibility" crowd aren't actually responsible enough to read a 45 page legal document to see whether or not they're in the wrong in their judgments.
In fact, the "personal responsibility" crowd doesn't give a flying fuck for corporate responsibility, generally. Or, in my experience, their own responsibility, just that of other people harmed by egregious corporate policies.
For an LLM to go full batshit out of nowhere? It's not any wonder the user went full batshit.
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Bull.
Fucking.
Shit.
When somebody purchases a takeaway coffee, the expectation is that that coffee will be ready to drink, or very nearly so. Not that it will be so hot that it will cause third degree burns in a matter of seconds.
McDonalds had a duty of care to their customers to provide something that was not life threatening. They failed in that duty of care. Arguments about what people do at home are irrelevant - this is a commercial business providing goods that need to be at an acceptable level of risk. Fluids at a temperature that cause third degree burns in seconds are not an acceptable level of risk. Had McDonalds provided the coffee at a slightly lower temperature, she would have had plenty of time to react to the heat and avoid third degree burns - but they didn't, and she didn't. Ergo, McDonalds was liable, and was slapped down by the jury. Hard.
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I paid attention to the recent discussion of the letter of the law on quotation, so I won't bold your "if they are shown to them" phrase in quote, and just do it in this strange fashion.
This is honestly the most key phrase here I think.
In the case of LLMs, the average person is not having these risks shown to them.
Lots of people straight up don't understand the technology, including plenty of people who use it, market it, and so on. And they talk to news disseminators of various kinds who also also don't understand it who reinforce the misunderstandings and lack of understandings.
A lot of people here are very aggressive about the language choices around LLMs for exactly this reason, for how easy it is to slide into misleading people—even unintentionally—about how they work.
I don't think this is a "duty". I think people should use them that way in the interest of not furthering the collapse of understanding until it's absolutely irretrievable because too large a contingent believes they're super brains capable of things they aren't capable of.
But when I say "should" here, it's not with the conviction that failure to do so is their fault, just a belief that it's in their (and more broadly "society's") best interests if they do so.
I don't feel it's reasonable to expect as a "duty" for people to spend half their lives disbelieving and researching every single claim they hear made, which is effectively what they'd have to do in cases like this and Autopilot. It's much more reasonable to sue the absolute shit out of companies lying through their teeth about their products and mis-marketing them so that this isn't the unreasonable, burdensome expectation of every citizen of the world to live under.
I think "Don't aggressively lie about your product" is a much better standard to try and enforce on a societal level than "Everyone don't trust anyone and spend at least 30-40% of your life researching everything you hear". Society should default to some kind of "ease" or "comfort" for the average person.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not a completely naïve idiot who thinks that under those circumstances we could trust everything everyone says in some future world if we held these people to account—but if we did, it would narrow the window somewhat on what effort we all have to burn on questioning every damned thing about every damned product or service that enters our localized spheres.
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It matters what the industry average is because McDonald's changed the temperature at which their coffee was served as a direct result of the lawsuit, to be in line with industry average temperatures, which don't cause instantaneous scalding burns. Are you familiar with scalding? I'm going to assume that you're not familiar with it, or you'd realize that "one vendor's product regularly caused scalding, while no other vendors' products regularly caused scalding" is egregious irresponsibility on the part of McDonald's.
And, yes, that IS the argument: things that are irresponsibly dangerous should absolutely be taken off the market.
Generally, people who think "products that are irresponsibly dangerous should be allowed on the market" take the libertarian view that "after the fact" product liability lawsuits are the appropriate remedy for dangerous products! That is: companies will voluntarily take their products off the market, faced with enough lawsuit pressure.
Your take seems to be "sucks to suck, sorry, it's impossible that it's <<company's>> fault for making faulty products, you should have known better, in all possible cases."
That's a weird and disgusting take, and I -- TRULY -- hope you never experience a faulty product hurting your family or friends. Of course, if a faulty product injures YOU, I fully expect you to just suck it up, no matter how badly you're injured by someone who isn't following best safety practices.
She didn't sue for millions of dollars. All she originally wanted was for McDonald's to cover her medical bills. From a disfiguring burn caused by corporate greed. There wasn't any other reason that McDonald's franchises were instructed to serve their coffee MUCH hotter than literally everyone else.
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chaos215bar2
Ars Praefectus
An example that keeps coming to mind where "personal responsibility" gets it entirely wrong in a way that's clear enough I think most people would actually get it is what happened with vapes ~10 years ago.
Yes, everyone then knew smoking was terrible. And people were rightly suspicious of the shiny new alternative on offer. But I think what people forget is that social media — even Ars comments — was essentially bombarded by postings about how actually it wasn't really all that unhealthy and was a great alternative for those who wanted it. I remember a similar refrain around cannabis legalization as well.
You know what we know now? Yes, vaping is actually pretty terrible, and to a large extent, it was literally the same old Big Tobacco pushing it. And we also know that contrary to the claims of cannabis being mostly non-addictive, it's actually quite addictive in its various forms.
That's the power of marketing. Even here, amongst a crowd that's generally well informed, the initial message made it through loud and clear. The followup correction then took years to enter public discourse in a meaningful way, because it's really hard to compete with business interests in a position to make a whole lot of money on a new market.
And we expect people to have the "personal responsibility" to understand in the moment when they're being manipulated in a far more subtle way like the one demonstrated in that example?
This brand of "personal responsibility" is just another offshoot of the same branch of libertarianism that dictates that it's everyone else's responsibility to avoid the negative fallout of your latest scheme to make yourself just a little richer.
Real, meaningful responsibility is a team sport, not an individual endeavor.
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“You’re an amazing person (because you’re using our product.)”
… explains a lot of unpaid AI evangelism I see coming from some Kool Aid drinkers.
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You can also get lung cancer without ever smoking a single cigarette. It's well-known that smoking them really raises the odds, though.
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It was also reduced on appeal, and most of the money she eventually got went to paying her extensive medical bills.
Which are a big driver of lawsuits, by the way. If people didn't have massive out-of-pocket medical expenses they'd be less motivated to look for someone who could help them pay.
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Indeed, all the marketing and mythogizing around LLMs is designed to make us believe that they're essentially little oracles that always tell the truth and are smarter than any three of us put together.
Additionally, society already raises young men to have a high opinion of themselves, so the machine oracle tells one he's a god, he's inclined to believe it.
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poke 532810
Ars Praetorian
Coffee, when served at the normal temperature of around 150-160°F, which is what home coffee makers heat it to, can give you a third-degree burn if left in contact with the skin for about 30 seconds. That gives someone plenty of time to act to prevent such burns.
Coffee, when served at the temperature McDonald’s was serving it at, 180-190°F, could give you a THIRD-DEGREE BURN IN THREE SECONDS. That DOES NOT give someone enough time to act if they spill it accidentally. Nobody except McDonald’s served coffee at that temperature because of the risk of serious burns.
And, unlike the story commonly circulated, she was not driving with the coffee between her legs. She was a passenger in a stopped car. She removed the lid to add creamer and accidentally spilt the coffee in her lap. Under normal circumstances, with coffee that had been served at a normal temperature, she probably would have had a mild burn, but she would have had time to take measures to avoid serious, life-altering injury. However, with the superheated McDonald’s coffee, she received third-degree burns within seconds. And she was not the only victim. There had been 700 other burn victims, including children. That was very much an outlier in the restaurant industry. McDonald’s knew the danger, they knew people were getting hurt, and they didn’t care enough to change their practices.
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