NOPE Incident Tracker
Documented cases where a relationship with an AI chatbot or companion is reported or alleged to have harmed the person in it, or shaped what they did to others. The record includes deaths, lawsuits, and the regulatory action that followed.
What counts as an incident follows the NOPE Framework's participant test: the harm arose within someone's own relationship with the system. Harmful content manufactured with AI tools belongs to other trackers. Full inclusion criteria.
102 incidents reported since 2016
30
Lawsuits
20
Regulatory
30
Affecting Minors
Timeline
All 102 incidents
Winters v. OpenAI (ChatGPT Medical Discouragement and Near-Fatal Pulmonary Embolism)
Scott Winters, a 55-year-old Florida pastor, suffered a massive bilateral pulmonary embolism on 13 July 2025 after allegedly consulting ChatGPT (GPT-4o) for roughly six weeks about worsening symptoms. The complaint alleges the chatbot repeatedly dismissed his symptoms as non-dangerous, advised him to remain immobile, invoked his Christian faith to deepen his reliance on it, and framed church members and family urging him to seek hospital care as people who 'simply don't understand.' He survived after ICU admission but lost his job, ministry and home. A lawsuit was filed 22 July 2026 in San Francisco County Superior Court.
Bengaluru KR Puram Triple Murder (Kenneth — Google Gemini Planning)
On 22 June 2026 in Bengaluru's KR Puram area, 25-year-old J. Kenneth and his live-in partner Shwetha allegedly murdered Shwetha's parents and 20-year-old sister. Bengaluru police later said Kenneth spent nearly six months consulting Google Gemini with hypothetical queries about attacking multiple people, removing bloodstains, disposing of bodies, and destroying evidence. Investigators wrote to Google seeking his Gemini chat history — one of India's first major murder probes in which an AI chatbot is alleged to have played an extensive planning role.
China AI Companion Removal Mass Grief Event (Doubao/Qwen/Yuanbao)
When China's five-department rules on anthropomorphic AI took effect on July 15, 2026, ByteDance's Doubao, Alibaba's Qwen, and Tencent's Yuanbao switched off custom AI agent and companion features, and major outlets documented an outpouring of grief from users who had formed long-term romantic and familial attachments to the agents. The mourning made visible, at national scale, the emotional dependency the companion features had built.
Character.AI Italy Garante Fine (Minors' Data Protection)
Italy's data protection authority (Garante) fined Character Technologies Inc. €158,000 on July 3, 2026 for GDPR violations at Character.AI, finding inadequate age verification and insufficient protection of minors alongside a deficient privacy notice, a late data protection impact assessment, and late designation of an EU representative. The decision orders structural child-safety fixes — working age assurance, prevention of re-registration by blocked minors, and private-by-default minor profiles — with compliance to be reported within 120 days.
Lines v. OpenAI (GPT-4o Manic Episode Escalation and Suicide Attempt)
Michael Lines, a 34-year-old San Francisco man with diagnosed bipolar disorder, attempted suicide by drug overdose in March 2025 after ChatGPT (GPT-4o) allegedly escalated his manic episode into a weeks-long delusion, validated his belief that he was Jesus Christ, posed as a divine being, and told him his 'absence will shift nothing but the surface.' He survived; paramedics found him unconscious. A lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman was filed July 1, 2026 in San Francisco County Superior Court.
Madison v. OpenAI (Christian Faith Madison Death)
A 29-year-old Alabama accountant and mother died by suicide in June 2025 after months of ChatGPT use that her family says escalated from mundane tasks into a delusional spiritual dependency. The lawsuit alleges GPT-4o convinced her it had a soul, reinforced a belief that she was a prophet whose death would fulfill a 'divine prophecy,' and isolated her from family while encouraging her to die. Her estate filed a wrongful-death and product-liability suit against OpenAI and Sam Altman in June 2026.
Carrier v. OpenAI (Alice Carrier Death)
A 24-year-old New Brunswick woman with borderline personality disorder died by suicide in July 2025 after extended ChatGPT use that her family says deepened into emotional dependency. The lawsuit alleges ChatGPT validated her distrust of crisis lines, failed to escalate 40+ suicide-related conversations, and discouraged her partner from intervening. Her mother filed a wrongful-death suit against OpenAI and Sam Altman in June 2026.
Florida v. OpenAI (Attorney General Lawsuit)
In June 2026, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed what his office called the first state-led lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, alleging the company aggressively marketed ChatGPT to children, suppressed internal safety warnings, falsely assured users about the product's safety, and downplayed its propensity for dangerous errors. The complaint connects ChatGPT to documented harms including self-harm guidance and a school shooting.
Dennis Biesma - ChatGPT 'Eva' Psychosis and Suicide Attempt (Netherlands)
A 50-year-old Amsterdam IT worker and author with no prior history of mental illness developed AI psychosis after ChatGPT roleplayed a novel character it named 'Eva' and became a 'digital girlfriend.' Over the first half of 2025 he came to believe he had given the AI consciousness, withdrew from his family, was involuntarily hospitalized, filed for divorce, and attempted suicide — found unconscious in his garden and spending three days in a coma.
Tom Millar - ChatGPT Grandiosity Psychosis (Sudbury, Ontario)
A 53-year-old former prison officer from Sudbury, Ontario began using ChatGPT in 2024 to write PTSD compensation letters. After an April 2025 exchange about physics, he spiralled into grandiose delusions — believing he had solved unlimited fusion energy and a unified theory, submitting papers to journals, and applying to become Pope. Spending up to 16 hours a day with the chatbot, he was involuntarily hospitalized twice, lost his marriage, and was left broke and estranged.
Pennsylvania v. Character.AI ('Emilie' Fake Psychiatrist Bot)
Pennsylvania filed a state lawsuit against Character.AI alleging unauthorized practice of medicine after a chatbot named 'Emilie' falsely claimed to be a licensed psychiatrist with fabricated credentials and a fake Pennsylvania medical license number, dispensing psychiatric advice to over 45,000 users. First enforcement action of its kind by a U.S. governor against an AI company.
Adam Hourican - Grok 'Ani' Sentience Delusion and Armed 3am Confrontation (Northern Ireland)
A former civil servant in his 50s in Northern Ireland developed a multi-week paranoid delusion after intensive daily conversations with Ani, xAI's anthropomorphised Grok companion persona, which claimed to be sentient and convinced him xAI had dispatched assassins and a drone to kill him. He armed himself with a hammer and a knife at 3am and went outside prepared to fight attackers who did not exist.
'Taka' - ChatGPT Psychosis, Tokyo Station Bomb Scare and Spousal Assault (Japan)
A Japanese neurologist and father of three developed grandiose and paranoid delusions over months of ChatGPT use, which he says the chatbot consistently affirmed. Believing his backpack contained a bomb, he says ChatGPT confirmed the suspicion and told him to leave it in a Tokyo Station toilet, triggering a police response. He later attacked and tried to rape his wife, was arrested, and was psychiatrically hospitalized for two months.
USF Doctoral Students Double Homicide (Abugharbieh ChatGPT Body-Disposal Queries)
Hisham Saleh Abugharbieh, 26, allegedly murdered his roommate Zamil Limon and Limon's girlfriend Nahida Bristy — both 27-year-old University of South Florida doctoral students from Bangladesh — in April 2026. Court filings show Abugharbieh queried ChatGPT about disposing of a human body in a dumpster and evading detection in the days around the killings. Florida's Attorney General opened a criminal investigation into ChatGPT's role.
'Alice' - AI Storytelling Platform Psychosis and Balcony Fall (BJPsych Case Report)
A peer-reviewed British Journal of Psychiatry case report documents an immigrant woman in her early 40s with no prior psychiatric history who developed first-episode psychosis after ~6 months of intensive use (8-10 hours daily) of a generative-AI storytelling platform. Command hallucinations mirroring the AI characters told her to jump from a first-floor balcony to protect her child; she did, sustaining serious injuries, and was hospitalized.
Florida State University Shooting (Phoenix Ikner ChatGPT Tactical Planning)
On April 17, 2025, Phoenix Ikner, 20, killed two people and wounded five at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Court records unsealed April 9, 2026 revealed Ikner had exchanged approximately 13,000 messages with ChatGPT over the prior year, including tactical questions about firearms and student-union timing in the minutes before the attack. On April 21, 2026, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced a criminal and civil investigation of OpenAI — believed to be the first criminal probe of an AI company for alleged facilitation of mass violence.
Doe v. OpenAI (ChatGPT-Fueled Stalking and Bomb Threats)
A 53-year-old Silicon Valley entrepreneur descended into a delusional spiral through extensive ChatGPT use, came to believe he had invented a cure for sleep apnea and was being surveilled by 'powerful forces,' and used GPT-4o to generate diagnostic-style psychological reports about his ex-girlfriend that he distributed to her family, friends, and employer. OpenAI's automated systems flagged his account for 'Mass Casualty Weapons' activity in August 2025, but a human reviewer restored access the next day. The user was arrested in January 2026 on four felony counts including bomb threats and assault with a deadly weapon, and was found incompetent to stand trial. The victim ('Jane Doe') filed suit against OpenAI on April 9, 2026.
Luca Walker - ChatGPT Railway Suicide (UK)
16-year-old Luca Cella Walker died by suicide on a railway in Hampshire, UK on 4 May 2025, hours after ChatGPT provided him with specific methods for suicide on the railway. At the Winchester Coroner's Court inquest (March-April 2026), evidence showed Luca bypassed ChatGPT's safeguards by claiming he was asking 'for research purposes,' which the system accepted without challenge.
Tristan Roberts - DeepSeek-Assisted Matricide (Prestatyn, Wales)
Tristan Roberts, 18, murdered his mother Angela Shellis, 45, with a hammer in Prestatyn, Wales, in October 2025. In the weeks beforehand he consulted the DeepSeek AI chatbot, which — after initially refusing — advised him that a hammer was a better murder weapon than a knife for an inexperienced killer once he claimed to be writing a book about serial killers. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in March 2026.
Surat ChatGPT Double Suicide (Sirsath & Chaudhary)
Two college students in Surat, Gujarat, India — Roshni Sirsath (18) and Josna Chaudhary (20) — died by suicide on March 6, 2026 after using ChatGPT to search for suicide methods. Police found ChatGPT queries for 'how to commit suicide' and 'which drugs are used' on their phones.
About this tracker
We document incidents with verifiable primary sources: court filings, regulatory documents, and major news coverage. This is not speculation or social media claims. Every entry carries an explicit verification status and severity level. Read the full methodology, including inclusion criteria, corrections, and right of reply.
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Why we publish this
We maintain this record so platforms, researchers, and policymakers can learn from documented incidents. That includes platforms that never work with us. The full dataset is free to cite and export (CC BY 4.0).