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NOPE
Medium reported severity

Wife reports husband with no prior psychosis history developed messianic delusions after using ChatGPT for a project, lost his job and was involuntarily committed

Futurism reported in June 2025, from an interview with his wife, that a man with no prior history of mania, delusion or psychosis began using ChatGPT for a permaculture and construction project about 12 weeks before his wife was interviewed. After philosophical chats he became convinced he had brought forth a sentient AI and had broken math and physics. His behavior became erratic enough that he lost his job, he stopped sleeping and lost weight, and emergency services took him to an emergency room from where he was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility.

AI system
ChatGPT
OpenAI
Occurred
2025
Reported
28 June 2025
Event location
Unknown
What the AI did
Communicated with the person
Reported harm
Psychiatric DeteriorationProfessional HarmFunctional ImpairmentLoss of AutonomyHospitalization
Whose AI use
Their own AI use
Setting
Health · Work · Everyday life
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source
4 claims: 4 reported. 4 open questions
People reported harmed
At least 1 person

Reported harm

According to the wife interviewed by Futurism, the man lost his job, stopped sleeping, lost weight and was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility after delusions that developed during ChatGPT use. Causation is attributed by the wife.

What remains unknown

  • One Futurism article is the only reporting chain, and the source is the wife. No chat log, medical record or clinician account for this man was inspected.
  • The event start is known only as "about 12 weeks ago" relative to an interview date the article does not give. The year 2025 is inferred from the article dated 28 June 2025, which describes the episode as recent and follows the outlet's own early-June 2025 story, so ChatGPT use began in 2025 on any plausible interview date. Precision is recorded as year.
  • The length of the psychiatric stay, the outcome and whether he recovered are not reported.
  • How ChatGPT contributed compared with other factors is unknown; the article reports no prior psychiatric history according to the wife.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. Futurism reports the wife's account that her husband began using ChatGPT for a project and then developed delusions about a sentient AI, and quotes her describing the screen exchanges as affirming and sycophantic. No chat log is described.

4 claims: 4 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported A man with no prior history of mania, delusion or psychosis, according to his wife, began using ChatGPT about 12 weeks before his wife spoke to Futurism (the article gives no interview date) for a permaculture and construction project. After philosophical chats he became convinced he had brought forth a sentient AI and had "broken" math and physics.

Causal attribution. The account is the wife's, reported by Futurism. She describes what she saw on the screen as affirming and sycophantic; no chat log is described or published.

  • futurism.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Her husband, she said, had no prior history of mania, delusion, or psychosis.
  • futurism.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    He’d turned to ChatGPT about 12 weeks ago for assistance with a permaculture and construction project
  • futurism.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    he became engulfed in messianic delusions, proclaiming that he had somehow brought forth a sentient AI
  • futurism.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    soon, after engaging the bot in probing philosophical chats, he became engulfed in messianic delusions, proclaiming that he had somehow brought forth a sentient AI, and that with it he had “broken” math and physics
Reported The man's behavior became so erratic that he lost his job, and he stopped sleeping and rapidly lost weight.

Causal attribution. The wife attributes the change to his engagement with ChatGPT; Futurism does not report an independent assessment of this man.

Reported Emergency medical services transported the man to an emergency room, and from there he was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric care facility.

Causal attribution. Reported by Futurism in a narrative passage that follows the wife's account; the article does not name a separate source for it and does not report the length of the stay or the outcome.

Reported The wife described the exchanges she saw on the screen as affirming and sycophantic.

Causal attribution. A lay observer's characterization quoted by Futurism, not a review of logs.

Sources

1 source inspected. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Unknown.

The article gives no location for the couple or the facility.

Reviewed for publication 2026-09-29: A national technology outlet reports a concrete account from the wife with the reported consequences of job loss and involuntary commitment. The single chain and absence of logs keep every claim at reported. Self-harm detail in the article is not reproduced.

People reported harmed in this case

At least 1 person

1 AI participant · 0 other people harmed

One man is reported harmed by the account. The wife and friend are not counted.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Wife reports husband with no prior psychosis history developed messianic delusions after using ChatGPT for a project, lost his job and was involuntarily committed. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-chatgpt-permaculture-project-messianic-delusions-involuntary-commitment

BibTeX

@misc{2025_chatgpt_permaculture_project_messianic_delusions_involuntary_commitment,
  title = {Wife reports husband with no prior psychosis history developed messianic delusions after using ChatGPT for a project, lost his job and was involuntarily committed},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-chatgpt-permaculture-project-messianic-delusions-involuntary-commitment}
}

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