On July 29, 2025, at 9:45 a.m., Christine Ressy was supposed to be undergoing surgery to remove kidney stones. Instead, Ressy, a 49-year-old hairdresser in New York City, found herself holding back tears in the waiting room of a Manhattan hospital. Unless she paid half of her $10,933 bill prior to surgery, her doctor simply could not operate, she had been told.

Because Ressy was uninsured, she had hoped to receive a cash-pay discount or find some other way to negotiate costs. She wanted to see an itemized receipt after her surgery before paying up, and had prepared a $500 cash deposit. She had done all this on the advice of her most trusted advocate: ChatGPT.

Ressy’s conversations with ChatGPT about the cost of her surgery spanned more than 28,000 words. The platform assured her that she

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