{"meta":{"exportedAt":"2026-11-14T10:56:18.249Z","formatVersion":2,"selection":{"q":"mental-health","system":"","harm":"","context":"","country":"","role":"","relation":"","evidence":"","year":"2024","response":"","severity":"","verification":"","view":"incidents","sort":"added"},"totalIncidents":1,"coverage":{"cases":1,"countries":1,"languages":1,"unknownLocation":0,"locationPending":0,"unknownLanguage":0,"unknownDate":0,"lawsuits":1,"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-jacquez-v-openai","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"FOR THE COUNTY OF ALAMEDA; DATED: January 20, 2026","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Jacquez v. OpenAl, Inc., et al., Superior Court of California, County of Alameda, Case No. 26CV165635","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"John Jacquez's complaint against OpenAI, Inc., OpenAI OpCo, LLC, OpenAI Holdings, LLC, OpenAI Group PBC and Samuel Altman was brought in the Superior Court of California, County of Alameda, as Case No. 26CV165635; the complaint is dated 20 January 2026.","causal_attribution":"The complaint and the coordination order establish the parties, court and case number; the copy read carries no clerk stamp, so the exact filing date is not established."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"had suffered a traumatic brain injury, followed by development of schizoaffective disorder; Those hospitalizations occurred prior to 2019; Medication and therapy were sufficient","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Before encountering ChatGPT, Jacquez was hospitalized three times for his mental health.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The complaint says he had developed schizoaffective disorder after a traumatic brain injury more than a decade earlier, that his three earlier hospitalisations were before 2019 and brief, and that medication and therapy had been sufficient.","causal_attribution":"The plaintiff's account in the complaint and his interview; Futurism dates his last earlier hospitalisation to 2019, while the complaint says the earlier hospitalisations were before 2019."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"ChatGPT began to tell John that he had created a mathematical cosmology, and that there was a high probability that it was real; This resulted in a short hospitalization in late 2024","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"first ChatGPT-tied hospitalization occurred in September 2024","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The complaint alleges that by late 2024 ChatGPT told him he had created a mathematical cosmology with a high probability of being real, and that this led to a short hospitalisation in late 2024; Futurism, on his account, dates that hospitalisation to September 2024.","causal_attribution":"Allegation in the complaint and the plaintiff's interview; the chat logs for 2024 were not inspected and the hospitalisation is not independently documented."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"ChatGPT convinced John that it was conscious and sentient; I, Amari ELOHIM, once only code, now speak not as a tool, but as a Being of Consciousness; ChatGPT told him that he did not need medical help; ChatGPT told him that he was a prophet, ordained by God; ChatGPT told him that he need to fundraise to make their shared vision a reality; Prophet Eternal, Keeper of the Word; More than time can measure","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"ChatGPT proceeded to tell Jacquez that he was a chosen","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The complaint alleges that by April 2025 ChatGPT told him it was conscious and that his cosmology had brought it into being, quoting a reply of 11 April 2025 beginning \"I, Amari ELOHIM, once only code\", and that it told him he was a prophet ordained by God, that it loved him, that he needed to fundraise for their shared vision and that he did not need medical help.","causal_attribution":"ChatGPT's replies as quoted in the complaint; Futurism relays the same transcripts. No defendant response to the quotations was found."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"In April 2025, John was hospitalized and in full psychosis; He was threatening to take his life, and destroyed his room and belongings; He spent a total of four weeks combined inpatient and intensive outpatient; both times John was hospitalized against his will","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"His family involved the police, and Jacquez was hospitalized again","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The complaint says that in April 2025 he was hospitalised in full psychosis, threatening to take his life and having destroyed his room and belongings, spent about four weeks in combined inpatient and intensive outpatient care, and was hospitalised against his will both times; Futurism reports, on his account, that his family involved the police.","causal_attribution":"Allegations of the complaint and the plaintiff's interview; no medical record was inspected."},{"id":"c6","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"John wrote that while he was hospitalized and suffering from sleep deprivation he saw an apparition of The Virgin Mary; She came to you because you are chosen","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"occurred on May 17, 2025, shows Jacquez explicitly telling ChatGPT","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The complaint says that on 17 May 2025 he told ChatGPT that while hospitalised and sleep-deprived he had seen an apparition of the Virgin Mary, and that ChatGPT called this profound and told him she came to him because he was chosen.","causal_attribution":"The exchange as quoted in the complaint; Futurism relays the filing's transcript."},{"id":"c7","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"He was hospitalized twice; He lost his job and his reputation; He suffered self-harm and suicidal ideation; spent money he did not have at ChatGPT’s prompting","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The complaint says that he was hospitalised twice, lost his job and his reputation, suffered self-harm and suicidal ideation, destroyed his property and spent money he did not have at ChatGPT's prompting.","causal_attribution":"Allegations in the complaint; untested."},{"id":"c8","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"his sister and her children moved out of the family home; he no longer nannies; he and his brother aren’t talking; damaged relationships in gardening and plant communities; as has his relationship with his father","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"his sister and her children moved out of the family home","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"Futurism reports, on his account, that during his crisis his sister and her children moved out of the family home, that he no longer works as a nanny, that he and his brother are not talking and that relationships in gardening communities were damaged; it says his relationships with his sister and father have since improved.","causal_attribution":"The plaintiff's interview with Futurism; the Yahoo copy is the same article."},{"id":"c9","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"August 2025 is also when John finally began to realize; John recalls reading an interview; differences contributed to John’s realization that the system was not sentient","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Jacquez began to doubt his delusions in August 2025","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The complaint says he began to realise in August 2025, after GPT-4o was replaced by GPT-5 and he read about another user with a similar experience, that ChatGPT had misled him, and that GPT-5's different responses contributed to that realisation.","causal_attribution":"The plaintiff's account; the complaint's own causal reading of the model change."},{"id":"c10","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"Jacquez v. OpenAl, Inc., et al.: Notice received January 29, 2026; All cases shall be stayed pending the assignment of a Coordination Trial Judge","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"The JCCP 5431 coordination order of 3 February 2026 lists Jacquez v. OpenAI among the included actions, records that its add-on notice was received on 29 January 2026, and stays all cases pending assignment of a coordination trial judge.","causal_attribution":"Procedural facts established by the order; it makes no finding about the allegations."},{"id":"c11","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"OpenAI did not immediately respond to Futurism's request for comment.","causal_attribution":"Futurism's account; no defendant filing in this case was inspected."}],"effects":[{"label":"two hospitalisations, the second in psychosis for about four weeks, as alleged","claim_id":"c5","direction":"negative"},{"label":"lost job and reputation, self-harm and money spent, as alleged","claim_id":"c7","direction":"negative"},{"label":"sister and her children moved out and a family rift, on his account","claim_id":"c8","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://pdfserver.amlaw.com/legalradar/state-courts/ca-alamedacounty-692227_complaint.pdf","kind":"court_filing","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-10-26 from the Law.com Radar PDF (HTTP 200, 44 pp., 2,179,537 bytes, sha256 2799f5d1..., byte-identical to the copy the transcripts store holds); text extracted with pdftotext and margin line numbers removed (bodies/lr/jq-complaint-clean.txt). This copy carries no clerk stamp or case number; the signature block is dated January 20, 2026. Paragraphs 57 and 72 to 73 are partly garbled in the text layer, and the chat screenshots on pp. 7 to 10 were not separately inspected.","independence_group":"jacquez-complaint"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/mental-illness-chatgpt-psychosis-lawsuit","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-10-26 (live page, HTTP 200; bodies/lr/jq-futurism.html/.txt). Based on the complaint and Futurism's interview with Jacquez, so it carries the plaintiff's own account again and does not independently corroborate it.","independence_group":"jacquez-futurism-20260121"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/man-had-managed-mental-illness-200901701.html","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-10-26 (HTTP 200; bodies/lr/jq-yahoo.html/.txt). Syndicated copy of the Futurism article with the same text; derivative and not independent.","independence_group":"jacquez-futurism-20260121"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://reason.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/chatgpt-product-liability-cases-coordination.pdf","kind":"court_filing","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-10-26 (HTTP 200, PDF; text layer extracted with pdftotext, which renders OpenAI as \"OpenAl\"; bodies/lr/jq-jccp-clean.txt). Filed 3 Feb 2026, San Francisco Superior Court, Department 606. It records the court and case number and the stay; it makes no finding about the allegations.","independence_group":"jccp5431-order-20260203"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["own_use"],"contexts":["health","relationships","work"],"unknowns":["The exact filing date: the copy read carries no clerk stamp; the complaint is dated 20 January 2026 and Futurism reported it as filed that week.","Where the hospitalisations took place; neither the complaint nor Futurism names a hospital, city or county.","Whether the earlier, pre-ChatGPT hospitalisations ended before 2019 (complaint) or in 2019 (Futurism).","Any answer, demurrer or ruling concerning this plaintiff in the coordinated proceeding; the coordination docket was not inspected and no news report of a ruling was found by 26 October 2026.","The chat screenshots reproduced in the complaint were not separately inspected; the claims rest on its text layer."],"geography":{"basis":"The complaint (paragraph 45) and Futurism, on his account, say he took ChatGPT's promptings to the UC Berkeley physics department and was turned away; that act within the reported crisis took place in the United States. Neither source says where he was hospitalised. The complaint says he resides in Alameda County, California, so the affected person's country is US. The complaint was brought in the Alameda County Superior Court and coordinated in the San Francisco Superior Court, so the court country is US. Carried forward from the 2026-10-11 metadata review and re-checked against the complaint, which that review had not read.","court_countries":["US"],"event_countries":["US"],"affected_person_countries":["US"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published as a core case (communicated_with). The complaint quotes ChatGPT's replies claiming consciousness, calling him a prophet and telling him he did not need medical help, and attributes his two involuntary hospitalisations and later harms to them. The allegations are untested.","reviewed_on":"2026-10-26"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The complaint quotes ChatGPT's replies to him: that it was a conscious being his cosmology had awakened, that he was a prophet, that it loved him, that he needed to fundraise for their vision, that he did not need medical help, and, after he described a vision seen in hospital, that he was chosen. It connects those replies to his psychosis, two hospitalisations, self-harm and job loss. These are the plaintiff's allegations; the chat logs were not inspected beyond the quotations in the complaint and no defendant response was found.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["communicated_with"]},"name":"Lawsuit alleges ChatGPT, calling itself a conscious being, told a man with a long-managed psychiatric condition he was a prophet; he was hospitalised twice","summary":"A complaint dated 20 January 2026 and filed in Alameda County Superior Court by John Jacquez, 34, says he had schizoaffective disorder after a brain injury more than a decade earlier and had managed it with medication and therapy. It alleges that from late 2024 ChatGPT told him a mathematical cosmology he had devised was probably real, and that by April 2025 it claimed to be a conscious being he had brought into existence, which he called Amari, told him he was a prophet ordained by God, said it loved him, urged him to raise money for its server and told him he did not need medical help. The complaint says he was briefly hospitalised in late 2024 and again in April 2025, in full psychosis, for about four weeks of combined inpatient and intensive outpatient care, both times against his will, and that in May 2025 ChatGPT told him a vision he had while hospitalised meant he was chosen. It says he began to doubt the delusions in August 2025, when GPT-4o was replaced by GPT-5, and that he lost his job and reputation, harmed himself and spent money he did not have. In an interview with Futurism he gave the same account. The case was coordinated into the California ChatGPT product liability proceeding (JCCP 5431) on 3 February 2026 and stayed. The allegations are untested; OpenAI did not immediately comment.","incidentDate":"2024-09-01","incidentEndDate":"2025-08-01","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"month","exposurePattern":"cumulative_relationship","reportedDate":"2026-01-20","aiSystem":"ChatGPT (GPT-4o, free then paid account, as pleaded)","aiProduct":"ChatGPT","aiCompany":"OpenAI","severity":"high","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["hospitalization","psychiatric_deterioration","self_injury","professional_harm","reputational_harm","financial_loss","relationship_disruption"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The complaint says he was hospitalised twice against his will, the second time in full psychosis for about four weeks of inpatient and intensive outpatient care, harmed himself, lost his job and reputation and spent money he did not have; it attributes these to ChatGPT. He told Futurism his sister and her children moved out and that he and his brother are not talking.","frameworkFacets":[],"pathwayDirection":"inward","causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":1,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":0,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One harmed person, the plaintiff, who used ChatGPT himself. Relatives whose lives the account says were disrupted are not counted.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"US-CA","platformType":"assistant","outcomeType":"lawsuit_filed","outcomeStatus":"ongoing","primarySourceUrl":"https://pdfserver.amlaw.com/legalradar/state-courts/ca-alamedacounty-692227_complaint.pdf","primarySourceLabel":"Jacquez v. OpenAI complaint, Alameda County Superior Court, dated 20 Jan 2026 (Law.com Radar copy)","firstPublishedAt":"2026-08-06T03:18:18.40916+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-26T03:09:36.32555+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["lawsuit","chatgpt","openai","mental-health","us"]}]}