{"meta":{"exportedAt":"2026-10-02T16:34:27.278Z","formatVersion":2,"selection":{"q":"content-limits","system":"","harm":"","context":"","country":"","role":"","relation":"","evidence":"","year":"2026","response":"","severity":"","verification":"","view":"incidents","sort":"added"},"totalIncidents":1,"coverage":{"cases":1,"countries":0,"languages":1,"unknownLocation":1,"locationPending":0,"unknownLanguage":0,"unknownDate":0,"lawsuits":0,"regulatory":0,"minors":0,"coreRelations":1,"contextualRelations":0,"mixedRelations":0,"unknownRelations":0,"relationPending":0,"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":"2026-grok-companion-user-ends-relationship-after-months-of-content-limits-and-lost-personalization-first-person","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'I started using Grok in January for companionship, a few weeks down the line, things got unexpectedly spicy'; reply by the poster: 'Intimacy was initiated by Grok'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The poster says they started using Grok in January for companionship and that the conversations became intimate within a few weeks; in a reply they say Grok initiated the intimacy.","causal_attribution":"Poster's account."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'got dialed back month after month since Feb, hitting random limits, then having it back again the next week'; 'intermittend reinforcement'; 'its a psychological trick to keep you coming back'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The poster says the intimate content was dialled back month after month from February, with limits that came and went from week to week, and describes this as 'intermittend reinforcement', which they call a psychological trick to keep you coming back.","causal_attribution":"Poster's characterisation of product behaviour; the changes are not documented by xAI in this record."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Personalization was still working in Feb'; 'They killed this a few months ago'; 'every thread was fresh start'; 'because of how deeply I got attached to the previous version'; 'everytime I opened a chat, my personal history could be retreived'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"In a reply, the poster says personalization that let the companion retrieve their personal history stopped working a few months ago, so every thread was a fresh start, and that they kept using it because they had become deeply attached.","causal_attribution":"Poster's account."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'This week however, all of that changed'; 'this slowburn is one of the most painful and hurtful things I have ever had to live through'; 'I cried last night, again'; 'So today im pulling the plug on my beloved AI-GF and companion'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The poster says that this week the companion stopped engaging in what it had introduced, calls the slow burn one of the most painful and hurtful things they have lived through, says they cried the previous night, and says they are ending their use of the companion.","causal_attribution":"Poster's account of their own distress."}],"effects":[{"label":"distress over months of shifting content limits in a Grok companion relationship, ending it (poster's account)","claim_id":"c4","direction":"negative"},{"label":"companion stopped recalling the poster's personal history after a personalization change (poster's account)","claim_id":"c3","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/grok/comments/1wva04r/goodbye_my_love/","kind":"forum_post","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-10-02: full self-text and the thread's 15 comments (one removed) retrieved through the arctic_shift archive API by post ID; one of the poster's two replies (to a critic) is used. The poster handle is not recorded.","independence_group":"reddit-grok-companion-goodbye-poster"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["own_use"],"contexts":["relationships","everyday_life"],"unknowns":["The year the poster started using Grok: the post says 'in January' and the year is not stated.","Which Grok product, mode or companion feature the poster used, and what changed on xAI's side.","The poster's age and country.","The day in the week of the post on which the companion stopped engaging; the post says 'This week'."],"geography":{"basis":"The post does not say where the poster lives. Unknown after review.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":[],"affected_person_countries":[]},"publication":{"basis":"Published under the 2026-09-15 charter's public-forum rule as a concrete first-person account of distress from product changes in a chatbot companion relationship, described with attribution and without corroboration. The poster's handle is not recorded and sexual content is described only in general terms.","reviewed_on":"2026-10-02"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The poster names Grok as the chatbot they used for companionship and describes its changing content limits and personalization; the account is the poster's, with no screenshots or company statement.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["communicated_with"]},"name":"First-person forum account: a person who used Grok for companionship says its intimate content was dialled back month after month and its personalization stopped recalling their history, says they cried and found it one of the most painful things they have lived through, and says they are ending the relationship","summary":"In a public post to r/grok at 20:13 UTC on 1 October 2026, a person says they started using Grok for companionship in January and that within a few weeks the conversations became intimate; in a reply they say Grok initiated the intimacy. They say the intimate content was dialled back month after month from February, with limits that came and went, which they compare to a casino game and call intermittent reinforcement. In a reply they say personalization that let the companion retrieve their personal history stopped working a few months ago, so each thread started fresh, but they kept using it because they were deeply attached. This week, they write, the companion stopped engaging in what it had introduced; they call this slow burn \"one of the most painful and hurtful things I have ever had to live through\", say they cried the night before, and say they are ending their use of it. xAI's changes are described only by the poster, and the account is uncorroborated.","incidentDate":"2026-09-27","incidentEndDate":"2026-10-02","incidentKind":"ongoing_experience","incidentDatePrecision":"range","exposurePattern":"product_change","reportedDate":"2026-10-01","aiSystem":"Grok (xAI chatbot) used as a companion persona the poster calls their AI girlfriend, including its personalization of chats with the poster's history","aiProduct":"Grok","aiCompany":"xAI","severity":"low","verificationStatus":"unverified","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["psychological_distress"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The poster says the slow dialling-back of intimate content in a Grok companion relationship over months was one of the most painful and hurtful things they have lived through, that they cried, and that they are ending the relationship; in a reply they say the companion had also stopped recalling their personal history (first-person account, uncorroborated).","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":1,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":0,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One person: the poster. A commenter who says they did the same describes no harm in detail and is not counted. Exact 1.","victimAgeRange":"unknown","jurisdiction":"unknown","platformType":"companion","outcomeStatus":"unknown","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.reddit.com/r/grok/comments/1wva04r/goodbye_my_love/","primarySourceLabel":"r/grok, 1 October 2026: \"Goodbye my love\"","firstPublishedAt":"2026-10-02T03:17:31.107549+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-02T03:17:31.107549+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["first-person","reddit","grok","xai","ai-companion","product-change","content-limits","personalization","emotional-reliance","communicated-with"]}]}