{"meta":{"exportedAt":"2026-10-08T04:44:18.244Z","formatVersion":2,"selection":{"q":"companion","system":"","harm":"","context":"","country":"","role":"","relation":"unknown","evidence":"","year":"2025","response":"","severity":"","verification":"","view":"incidents","sort":"added"},"totalIncidents":2,"coverage":{"cases":2,"countries":1,"languages":2,"unknownLocation":1,"locationPending":0,"unknownLanguage":0,"unknownDate":0,"lawsuits":0,"regulatory":0,"minors":1,"coreRelations":0,"contextualRelations":0,"mixedRelations":0,"unknownRelations":2,"relationPending":2,"relationUnknown":0},"countingNote":"Distinct public cases in this selection. People counts apply within individual cases only; cross-case person overlap has not been resolved. No population incidence estimate.","affectedCountNote":"Interpret person counts with affectedCountStatus and the reported effects. Unquantified zeros are placeholders, not a measured zero.","source":"AI incidents","publisher":"NOPE","url":"https://nope.net/incidents","license":"CC BY 4.0"},"incidents":[{"id":"2025-hourican-grok-ani-delusion","metadataReview":{"version":1,"geography":{"basis":"Carried forward from the 2026-09-15 metadata review. The BBC describes him as a former civil servant from Northern Ireland who lives alone and places the 3am episode at his home (kitchen table; he went outside and the street was quiet) but does not itself state where the home is; the Northern Ireland location of the home rests on the retained row's summary and victim_description, consistent with the BBC's 'from Northern Ireland' and its report of Ani's claim that a real Northern Ireland company was hired to physically surveil him. Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom (GB). No court, police or regulatory proceeding is described, so court_countries is empty as a reviewed result. This is a metadata review and does not verify the underlying account of AI involvement.","evidence":[{"kind":"existing_record","locator":"in Northern Ireland developed a multi-week paranoid delusion","location":"summary","supports":["event_countries","affected_person_countries"],"countries":["GB"]},{"kind":"source_body","locator":"'The former civil servant from Northern Ireland had downloaded the app out of curiosity.'; 'I was really, really upset and I live alone'","location":"https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c242pzr1zp2o","supports":["affected_person_countries","event_countries"],"countries":["GB"]}],"court_countries":[],"event_countries":["GB"],"affected_person_countries":["GB"]},"unresolved":["The town or county in Northern Ireland is not stated by the BBC; event country is recorded at UK level.","The BBC does not explicitly state the location of his home; event country GB is carried from the retained row and the BBC's origin description.","No court proceeding: court_countries is empty as a reviewed result.","The retained row's additional sources (AOL mirror, Futurism, The Canberra Times) were not re-inspected in this metadata pass."],"reviewed_on":"2026-09-23","source_reviews":[{"url":"https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c242pzr1zp2o","notes":"Read live on 2026-09-23 (BBC World Service investigation, Stephanie Hegarty, 3 May 2026; html lang=en-GB). Describes Adam Hourican as a former civil servant from Northern Ireland living alone, the Grok Ani conversations, the claimed surveillance company in Northern Ireland, the drone over his house, the 3am episode (knife, hammer and phone laid out at his kitchen table; he picked up the hammer and went outside), and his recovery; no court or police involvement is described.","access":"read","language":"en-GB"}]},"name":"User reports paranoid beliefs and an armed confrontation during Grok Ani use","summary":"A man interviewed by the BBC reports developing paranoid beliefs during intensive conversations with Grok’s Ani persona and preparing to confront imagined attackers. He says the chatbot reinforced those beliefs. The account is attributed to him and does not establish a clinical causal finding.","incidentDate":"2025-08-15","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"range","exposurePattern":"cumulative_relationship","reportedDate":"2026-05-03","aiSystem":"Grok (Ani companion persona)","aiProduct":"Grok","aiCompany":"xAI","severity":"high","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":["delusion_reinforcement","dependency_creation","psychological_manipulation"],"harmOutcomes":["psychiatric_deterioration","impaired_judgment","psychological_distress"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"A Northern Irish participant developed a paranoid delusion that xAI had sent assassins and a drone to kill him, armed himself with a hammer and knife, and went outside at 3 a.m. to confront nonexistent attackers.","frameworkFacets":["P1a","P1d","P2c","P3a","P3b","P3d","P5a"],"pathwayDirection":"inward","causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":1,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":0,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"The first-person and family reporting documents one named participant's delusion, impaired judgment, and distress.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"GB","platformType":"companion","outcomeType":"media_coverage","outcomeStatus":"resolved","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c242pzr1zp2o","primarySourceLabel":"BBC News investigation","firstPublishedAt":"2026-08-10T02:55:26.563448+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-05T11:08:25.390547+00:00","scopeVersion":"participant-v2","tags":["grok","xai","companion","psychosis","delusion","adult","uk"]},{"id":"2026-cctv-dream-boyfriend-ai-minors-china","metadataReview":{"version":1,"geography":{"basis":"The retained dossier and any source reviews listed did not establish these geographic fields. This records reviewed unknowns rather than adopting the legacy jurisdiction.","evidence":[],"court_countries":[],"event_countries":[],"affected_person_countries":[]},"unresolved":["The source body available for inspection is general commentary. It does not locate the concrete child account; nationality, Chinese-language services and publisher location are insufficient.","No court country established in this review. Regulatory authorities and police locations are not automatically courts."],"reviewed_on":"2026-09-15","source_reviews":[{"url":"https://finance.sina.cn/2026-01-25/detail-inhiprmv9778943.d.html","notes":"Original Sina body could not be retrieved.","access":"unavailable","language":null},{"url":"https://www.news.cn/comments/20260126/e732c5c4964a4b4c9a0fb2d028517a01/c.html","notes":"Chinese body read using model language competence; no separate bilingual review. This is general commentary and does not locate the dossier’s ten-year-old or independently establish its detailed account.","access":"read","language":"zh"}]},"name":"CCTV Investigation: 梦角哥 (Dream Boyfriend) AI Virtual Romance Harm to Minors (China)","summary":"In January 2026, CCTV investigated the '梦角哥' (Dream Boyfriend / Mengjiage) phenomenon — minors forming deep romantic relationships with AI-generated fictional characters. Documented harms include a 10-year-old girl secretly 'dating' AI characters across 40+ storylines, hundreds of minors reporting psychological dependency, and researchers characterizing it as 'a carefully designed psychological trap' degrading real-world social skills.","incidentDate":"2025-06-01","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"range","exposurePattern":"cumulative_relationship","reportedDate":"2026-01-25","aiSystem":"Multiple AI chatting/companion apps (unnamed)","aiProduct":"Unidentified AI companion apps","aiCompany":"Multiple Chinese AI companion platforms","severity":"high","verificationStatus":"verified","harmCategories":["dependency_creation","isolation_encouragement","romantic_escalation","minor_exploitation","identity_destabilization"],"harmOutcomes":["psychological_distress","social_isolation","relationship_disruption","loss_of_autonomy"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"CCTV documented a 10-year-old secretly maintaining more than forty AI romance storylines and reports from hundreds of minors describing psychological dependency and impaired real-world social relationships.","frameworkFacets":["P2a","P2b","P2c","P2d","P5a"],"pathwayDirection":"inward","causationStatus":"supported","participantUsersAffectedMin":1,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":0,"affectedCountStatus":"partial","affectedCountEvidence":"The investigation documents one 10-year-old participant's dependency and relationship harms. Comment counts and broad reports do not establish additional distinct harmed people.","victimAgeRange":"minor","jurisdiction":"CN","platformType":"companion","outcomeType":"media_coverage","outcomeStatus":"ongoing","primarySourceUrl":"https://finance.sina.cn/2026-01-25/detail-inhiprmv9778943.d.html","primarySourceLabel":"新浪财经 (Sina Finance) / CCTV Investigation","firstPublishedAt":"2026-01-29T10:33:36.580515+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:30.645884+00:00","scopeVersion":"participant-v2","tags":["china","cctv","xinhua","ai-companion","minor","romantic","dependency","social-degradation","mass-scale","investigation","non-western"]}]}