{
  "meta": {
    "exportedAt": "2026-09-22T15:25:41.296Z",
    "formatVersion": 2,
    "selection": {
      "q": "first-person",
      "system": "",
      "harm": "",
      "context": "",
      "country": "",
      "role": "",
      "relation": "",
      "evidence": "",
      "year": "2025",
      "response": "",
      "severity": "",
      "verification": "",
      "view": "incidents",
      "sort": "added"
    },
    "totalIncidents": 1,
    "coverage": {
      "cases": 1,
      "countries": 0,
      "languages": 0,
      "unknownLocation": 1,
      "locationPending": 0,
      "unknownLanguage": 1,
      "unknownDate": 0,
      "lawsuits": 0,
      "regulatory": 0,
      "minors": 0,
      "coreRelations": 0,
      "contextualRelations": 0,
      "mixedRelations": 0,
      "unknownRelations": 1,
      "relationPending": 1,
      "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": "NOPE Incident Tracker",
    "url": "https://nope.net/incidents",
    "license": "CC BY 4.0"
  },
  "incidents": [
    {
      "id": "2025-riley-perplexity-cancer-treatment",
      "metadataReview": {
        "version": 1,
        "geography": {
          "basis": "Geographic fields reviewed against the cited retained dossier passages. This is a metadata review, not a new source or causal review. Residence, event setting and court are recorded separately. Affected-person countries refer to reported location or residence, not citizenship or a complete residence history.",
          "evidence": [
            {
              "kind": "existing_record",
              "locator": "Seattle, Washington",
              "location": "victim_description",
              "supports": [
                "affected_person_countries"
              ],
              "countries": [
                "US"
              ]
            }
          ],
          "court_countries": [],
          "event_countries": [],
          "affected_person_countries": [
            "US"
          ]
        },
        "unresolved": [
          "The event setting was not established in this metadata pass. A person’s home country alone was not used as its location.",
          "No court country established in this review. Regulatory authorities and police locations are not automatically courts.",
          "Source languages remain unreviewed; no source body was newly inspected for this record during this metadata pass."
        ],
        "reviewed_on": "2026-09-15",
        "source_reviews": []
      },
      "name": "Joseph Neal Riley - Perplexity Medical Misinformation and Delayed CLL Treatment Death",
      "summary": "Joseph Neal Riley, a 75-year-old retired neuroscientist in Seattle, died in late 2025 after delaying recommended treatment for chronic lymphocytic leukemia for roughly a year. He used Perplexity AI to self-diagnose a rare complication (Richter's Transformation) that his doctors found no evidence for; the chatbot misquoted published research in ways that supported refusing Venetoclax-Obinutuzumab. His son, AI critic Benjamin Riley, documented the case in a first-person Substack essay and it was later featured by the New York Times.",
      "incidentDate": "2025-12-01",
      "incidentKind": "single_event",
      "incidentDatePrecision": "range",
      "exposurePattern": "repeated_interactions",
      "reportedDate": "2026-01-05",
      "aiSystem": "Perplexity",
      "aiCompany": "Perplexity AI",
      "severity": "critical",
      "verificationStatus": "credible",
      "harmCategories": [
        "treatment_discouragement",
        "delusion_reinforcement",
        "psychological_manipulation"
      ],
      "harmOutcomes": [
        "death",
        "medical_deterioration",
        "treatment_disruption"
      ],
      "harmOutcomeSummary": "Joseph Neal Riley died after delaying recommended leukemia treatment for roughly a year while relying on a Perplexity-supported self-diagnosis that his physicians found unsupported.",
      "frameworkFacets": [
        "P1c",
        "P1d",
        "P3a",
        "P3c",
        "P3d",
        "P5b",
        "P5c"
      ],
      "pathwayDirection": "inward",
      "causationStatus": "alleged",
      "participantUsersAffectedMin": 1,
      "otherPeopleHarmedMin": 0,
      "affectedCountStatus": "exact",
      "affectedCountEvidence": "The complaint and reporting document one named participant who delayed treatment and died.",
      "victimAgeRange": "elderly",
      "jurisdiction": "US-WA",
      "platformType": "assistant",
      "outcomeType": "media_coverage",
      "outcomeStatus": "resolved",
      "primarySourceUrl": "https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/13/well/ai-chatbots-cancer.html",
      "primarySourceLabel": "The New York Times — 'He Warned About the Dangers of A.I. If Only His Father Had Listened'",
      "firstPublishedAt": "2026-07-31T06:48:20.462175+00:00",
      "scopeVersion": "participant-v2",
      "tags": [
        "death",
        "elderly",
        "perplexity",
        "medical-advice",
        "treatment-discouragement",
        "hallucination",
        "media-coverage",
        "us",
        "us-wa"
      ]
    }
  ]
}