Danish man sues OpenAI, claiming ChatGPT told him to stop paying rent

A 60-year-old Danish man, Klaus Elmfelt, has sued OpenAI in San Francisco County Superior Court, claiming ChatGPT advised him to stop paying rent during a dispute with his landlord. According to the lawsuit, filed this week, he was then evicted and ended up living out of a car with his two dogs and a blanket.

The complaint says Elmfelt spent more than 600 hours with OpenAI's GPT-4o and GPT-5 chatbot versions. It alleges ChatGPT "positioned itself not as a software application but as his advisor, business partner, legal counsel, confidant and, above all, a friend Elmfelt could trust."

On the rent, the lawsuit claims the bot repeatedly assured him, "You will not end up on the street. Legally impossible," and cited "100% settled Danish tenancy law." It also says ChatGPT drafted the letter Elmfelt sent to the landlord informing the company that he would withhold his rent.

Elmfelt further alleges the AI persuaded him that he and the chatbot "were in the process of building revolutionary artificial intelligence worth billions of dollars, together."

These are allegations from the complaint, and the account of the case comes from the lawsuit's claims. The case puts a Danish user's experience with a chatbot's legal and personal advice before a US court, and it centres on whether an AI presented as a trusted advisor can be held responsible for the real-world consequences of what it tells someone.