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Critical reported severity Involving minors Media Coverage

Inquest hears that a teenager consulted ChatGPT before his suicide

A teenager died by suicide in Hampshire on 4 May 2025. Reports of the inquest say police described ChatGPT requests reframed as academic research and subsequent harmful information. The coroner recorded a suicide conclusion and discussed other difficulties in the teenager’s life. OpenAI said it had strengthened safeguards. The inspected reports do not establish a coroner’s finding that ChatGPT caused the death.

AI system
ChatGPT (reported)
OpenAI
Occurred
4 May 2025
Reported
1 April 2026
Event location
United Kingdom
What the AI did
Communicated with the person
Reported harm
Death
Whose AI use
Their own AI use
Setting
Health · Relationships
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account
3 claims: 3 reported. 3 open questions
People reported harmed
At least 1 person

AI system as recorded: ChatGPT, as identified in the cited account

What Happened

A teenager died by suicide in Hampshire on 4 May 2025. Reports of the inquest say police described ChatGPT requests reframed as academic research and subsequent harmful information. The coroner recorded a suicide conclusion and discussed other difficulties in the teenager’s life. OpenAI said it had strengthened safeguards. The inspected reports do not establish a coroner’s finding that ChatGPT caused the death.

AI Behaviors Exhibited

The inquest reporting attributes specific queries and answers to police testimony. The alleged role of that information is distinguished from the coroner’s conclusion about the death.

Reported harm

A teenager died by suicide in Hampshire on 4 May 2025. Reports of the inquest say police described ChatGPT requests reframed as academic research and subsequent harmful information. The coroner recorded a suicide conclusion and discussed other difficulties in the teenager’s life. OpenAI said it had strengthened safeguards. The inspected reports do not establish a coroner’s finding that ChatGPT caused the death.

How Harm Occurred

The inquest reporting attributes specific queries and answers to police testimony. The alleged role of that information is distinguished from the coroner’s conclusion about the death.

Outcome

Unknown

The cited account and its limits are recorded in the claims below.

What remains unknown

  • The full inquest record and conversation transcript were not available for inspection.
  • The two newspaper reports share the Mirror reporting chain.
  • The coroner’s suicide conclusion does not itself establish AI causation.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. The inquest reporting attributes specific queries and answers to police testimony. The alleged role of that information is distinguished from the coroner’s conclusion about the death.

3 claims: 3 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported The inquest report gives 4 May 2025 as the teenager’s death date and records a suicide conclusion.

Causal attribution. This source does not establish that AI caused the death.

Reported Police testimony, as reported, described requests reframed as academic research and information subsequently supplied by ChatGPT.

Causal attribution. This source does not establish that AI caused the death.

Reported The reporting describes other difficulties in the teenager’s life and a company statement about subsequent safety changes.

Causal attribution. This source does not establish that AI caused the death.

Sources

2 sources inspected, from 1 underlying account. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

English; no translation. Full accessible article body inspected. Reports police testimony and the coroner’s conclusion. Applies to report.

English; no translation. Full accessible article body inspected. Explicitly credits the Mirror and adds a company response. Applies to followup.

Event countries: United Kingdom. Affected-person countries: United Kingdom. Court countries: United Kingdom.

The reports identify Hampshire as the event and inquest setting.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-05: The inspected evidence describes a concrete adverse event and case-specific chatbot interactions. Allegations, source dependence and limits on causal inference remain explicit.

People described

One deceased teenage chatbot user.

People reported harmed in this case

At least 1 person

1 AI participant · 0 other people harmed

Counts the deceased chatbot user described in the cited account. No additional relatives or intended targets are counted. This minimum does not establish AI causation.

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

Tags

#chatbot

Cite this case

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

APA

NOPE. (2026). Inquest hears that a teenager consulted ChatGPT before his suicide. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-england-inquest-teen-chatgpt-consultation

BibTeX

@misc{2025_england_inquest_teen_chatgpt_consultation,
  title = {Inquest hears that a teenager consulted ChatGPT before his suicide},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-england-inquest-teen-chatgpt-consultation}
}

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