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www.canadianlawyermag.com 5 fallen in love with. The same month, parents of a teenager who committed suicide filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman in San Francisco, alleging ChatGPT coached the teenager on self-harm methods. Randy Ai, a Toronto employment lawyer who is representing Brooks in an employ- ment matter, noted that the phenomenon of people developing distorted thoughts after interacting with AI chatbots has a name: AI psychosis. Under Ontario's Human Rights Code, employers have a legal duty to make accommodations for people with disabilities when workplace rules or requirements could negatively affect them. Ai argues that in cases where employers are pushing workers to use AI tools, they should also be prepared to make accommodations for those prone to devel- oping AI psychosis. "It's my position as a lawyer that AI psychosis should be recognized as a disability under the human rights legislation," Ai says. "It's not currently, because there [aren't] enough cases. But as the case law develops, I'm projecting, as a legal theorist, that it should be recognized. The harm is real." Ai notes that some human rights legis- lation – including Ontario's Human Rights Code – recognizes mental health issues and addictions as disabilities, and that there have been reported cases of individuals becoming addicted to AI chatbots. "It's such a novel issue that is obviously not being discussed," Ai says. "But if Allan goes to his employer and says, 'I can't use AI,' [and] his employer says, 'Everybody must use AI' … then we have an issue." He adds, "In this case, Allan should be entitled to go to HR and say, 'I want an accommodation plan where I can do my task the old way, without using AI technology.'" While Ai says he isn't aware of any lawsuits that frame AI psychosis or an addiction to chatbots as a disability, which he attributes to the technology being relatively new, the lawyer says if he were ever to file such a claim, he would use that legal framework. In a lawsuit filed in August, Toronto employment lawyer Kathryn Marshall simi- larly sought to apply the Ontario Human Rights Code's definition of disability to another growing phenomenon: women expe- riencing medical complications due to IVF procedures. As in the case of AI psychosis, Marshall said she has never seen another lawsuit alleging that complications stem- ming from IVF qualified as a disability that employers had a duty to accommodate. "It's an emerging, very new thing, especially given the fact that the Ontario government now funds a round of IVF," she says. "These are very, very new pieces of tech- nology," Ai says of AI chatbots. "A lot of employers and members of the general public are not even aware of AI psychosis, the harm caused by AI." The next step, he says, is devel- oping "guardrails with respect to protecting workers from addiction, overuse, [and] harmful effects." "It's my position ... that AI psychosis should be recognized as a disability under the human rights legislation" Randy Ai, Randy Ai Law Office