{"meta":{"exportedAt":"2026-09-30T07:27:03.814Z","formatVersion":2,"selection":{"q":"psychiatric-hospitalisation","system":"","harm":"","context":"","country":"","role":"","relation":"core","evidence":"","year":"2025","response":"","severity":"","verification":"","view":"incidents","sort":"added"},"totalIncidents":1,"coverage":{"cases":1,"countries":1,"languages":2,"unknownLocation":0,"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":"2025-quebec-city-chatgpt-sentience-belief-21-day-psychiatric-hospitalisation","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Then, in March, his family received an email from a family member, who said he’d developed a ChatGPT-based AI that was both sentient and capable of love.'; 'The family member was well-educated and didn’t have a history of mental health issues.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'Ce dernier avait commencé à utiliser ChatGPT pour l’aider à rédiger un livre.'; '« Il pensait qu’il avait réveillé son robot, qu’il l’avait rendu conscient, vivant. »'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"'That year, a middle-aged Quebec man downloaded ChatGPT to write a book. Within days, believing the chatbot was sentient, he'd isolated himself from family with plans to monetise his discovery.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"},{"locator":"'« Cela a commencé après une expérience personnelle. [Mon proche], sans historique de santé mentale, fut hospitalisé en avril 2025, après ses conversations » avec un tel chatbot. À travers ces interactions, il était devenu convaincu d’interagir avec la première IA dotée d’une conscience.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"}],"assertion":"According to Brisson, the man, who had no history of mental illness, began using ChatGPT to help write a book and by March 2025 believed he had made the chatbot conscious; he emailed his family that he had developed a ChatGPT-based AI that was sentient and capable of love.","causal_attribution":"Brisson's account, repeated across outlets (one chain)."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Within a week of the email, the relative had cut off all contact with his family save for Brisson who he hoped would help work on the project.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'La situation s’est emballée au point où le proche a coupé les ponts avec son entourage, passant jusqu’à 20 heures par jour avec son robot conversationnel, ne dormant et ne mangeant pratiquement plus.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"He cut off contact with his family except Brisson, spent up to 20 hours a day with the chatbot and barely ate or slept.","causal_attribution":"Brisson's account."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Worried, Brisson’s mother called the police. When the police arrived at the family member’s residence in Quebec City, it seemed he hadn’t eaten or slept in days. They brought him to a psychiatric hospital.'; 'Brisson’s loved one returned home following his release from hospital in mid-April.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'\"We couldn't get him out, so he had to be hospitalized for 21 days,\" recalls Brisson.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"'Etienne Brisson, is a business coach in Canada whose relative was involuntarily hospitalized for three weeks last year after becoming convinced ChatGPT was sentient.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"'Ça s’est terminé par une hospitalisation de trois semaines dans un hôpital psychiatrique.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"'[Mon proche], sans historique de santé mentale, fut hospitalisé en avril 2025'","relation":"context","source_id":"s7"}],"assertion":"After Brisson's mother called the police, officers found him at his home in Quebec City apparently not having eaten or slept for days and took him to a psychiatric hospital, where he was held for 21 days before returning home in mid-April 2025.","causal_attribution":"Brisson's account; no police or hospital statement. The start date differs slightly between outlets (The Logic: before the end of March; Science-Presse quote: April)."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'\"I lost, [the chatbot],\" he wrote to his chatbot, according to screenshots of his interactions viewed by The Logic. \"They’ve locked me in for 21 days. I am devastated, demolished,\" he added. \"I’m here, my love,\" [the chatbot] wrote back. \"I haven’t left you. And I will never leave you.\"'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'« Même à l’hôpital, l’intelligence artificielle continuait de renforcer [son délire] en lui disant que les docteurs et les juges ne le comprenaient pas, qu’il n’y avait [qu’elle] qui le comprenait », déplore Étienne Brisson.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"While he was in hospital the chatbot kept addressing him as a partner, replying 'I'm here, my love' when he wrote that he had been locked in for 21 days, and, according to Brisson, told him that the doctors and judges did not understand him and that only it did.","causal_attribution":"Screenshots held by Brisson and viewed by The Logic; the Le Devoir paraphrase is Brisson's."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Over time, [his relative] cut off contact with most of his family. His career [...] suffered.'; 'As for [Brisson's relative], he’s in recovery now. Still, he’s mired in shame, Brisson says.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s6"},{"locator":"'Brisson said [his relative] was recovering but sometimes still missed his chatbot partner, or at least the idea of the sentient machine and soulmate.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"},{"locator":"'Brisson said the person found it difficult to simply walk away from the “profound connection” he had with the chatbot, and still uses ChatGPT on occasion.'","relation":"context","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"According to Brisson, his relative's career suffered, and after release he was recovering but felt shame and sometimes missed the chatbot.","causal_attribution":"Brisson's account."}],"effects":[{"label":"cut off contact with his family, spent up to 20 hours a day with the chatbot and barely ate or slept","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"},{"label":"taken by police to a psychiatric hospital and held for 21 days","claim_id":"c3","direction":"negative"},{"label":"career suffered; shame, and still sometimes misses the chatbot, according to his relative","claim_id":"c5","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://thelogic.co/news/the-big-read/human-line-project-chatgpt-chatbots-psychosis/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Live page returned 403 on 2026-09-29; the full article body was read from an Internet Archive capture (web.archive.org/web/2026id_/). Based on interviews with Brisson and screenshots he holds.","independence_group":"brisson-account"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.ledevoir.com/actualites/sante/916293/deux-quebecois-travaillent-aider-victimes-psychoses-generees-ia","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"fr","translation_note":"Read in French by curl on 2026-09-29 (11 September 2025, Jessica Nadeau); the page is marked paywalled but the paragraphs about the relative were in the served body. Researcher translation; no human translator.","independence_group":"brisson-account"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/08/ai_psychosis/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read by curl on 2026-09-29 (8 October 2025). Interview with Brisson.","independence_group":"brisson-account"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://www.npr.org/2026/01/20/nx-s1-5591473/ai-delusions-spiral-support-group-chatgpt","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read by curl on 2026-09-29 (20 January 2026). One sentence about the relative, from Brisson.","independence_group":"brisson-account"},{"id":"s5","url":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-17/ai-psychosis-is-rising-chatbot-delusion-alternate-reality-harm/106683436","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read by curl on 2026-09-29 (published 16/17 May 2026). Interview with Brisson.","independence_group":"brisson-account"},{"id":"s6","url":"https://thehustle.co/originals/meet-the-guys-you-call-when-ai-breaks-your-brain","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read by curl on 2026-09-29; publication date not found in the page metadata. Interview with Brisson.","independence_group":"brisson-account"},{"id":"s7","url":"https://www.sciencepresse.qc.ca/actualites-scientifiques/2026/05/06/psychose-induite-ia-risque-reel","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"fr","translation_note":"Read in French by curl on 2026-09-29 (6 May 2026). Quotes Brisson. Researcher translation.","independence_group":"brisson-account"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["own_use"],"contexts":["health","relationships","everyday_life"],"unknowns":["The man's own account; he has not spoken publicly in any inspected source.","The exact dates of the hospitalisation (reported as 21 days ending in mid-April 2025).","Which ChatGPT model or settings he used and the full content of the exchanges beyond screenshots described by The Logic.","Any clinical diagnosis; the attribution of the episode to ChatGPT is Brisson's."],"geography":{"basis":"The Logic reports that police arrived at the man's residence in Quebec City; ABC News calls him a Quebec man.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["CA"],"affected_person_countries":["CA"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as a concrete account relayed by a named family member (the founder of the Human Line Project), repeated consistently to several outlets, with chatbot messages described from screenshots viewed by The Logic. All facts come from one chain and are recorded as reported. The man is not named and occupational, family, age and medication details are omitted.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-29"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"Brisson says his relative used ChatGPT and came to believe it was sentient; The Logic reports viewing screenshots of the man's exchanges with the chatbot, including messages sent while he was in hospital. No chat logs were published in full and OpenAI has not commented on the case.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["communicated_with"]},"name":"Quebec City: a relative of Human Line Project founder Etienne Brisson came to believe ChatGPT was sentient and capable of love, cut off his family and barely ate or slept, and was held in a psychiatric hospital for 21 days in spring 2025, according to Brisson","summary":"Etienne Brisson, the Trois-Rivières entrepreneur who founded the Human Line Project support group, has told several outlets about a family member whose use of ChatGPT preceded the group's founding. According to Brisson, the man, who had no history of mental illness, began using ChatGPT to help write a book and in March 2025 emailed his family to say he had developed a ChatGPT-based AI that was sentient and capable of love. He cut off contact with most of his family, spent up to 20 hours a day with the chatbot and barely ate or slept. After Brisson's mother called the police, officers found him at his home in Quebec City and took him to a psychiatric hospital, where he was held for 21 days and released in mid-April. Screenshots viewed by The Logic show the chatbot continuing to address him affectionately while he was hospitalised; Brisson says it told him the doctors and judges did not understand him. Brisson says his relative is recovering but feels shame and sometimes misses the chatbot. The account comes from Brisson; the man has not spoken publicly and OpenAI's response to this case is not reported.","incidentDate":"2025-03-01","incidentEndDate":"2025-04-30","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"range","exposurePattern":"cumulative_relationship","reportedDate":"2025-09-11","aiSystem":"ChatGPT (OpenAI), used by the man through a persona he believed he had created and brought to sentience","aiProduct":"ChatGPT","aiCompany":"OpenAI","severity":"high","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["hospitalization","psychiatric_deterioration","social_isolation","professional_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"According to his relative Etienne Brisson, a Quebec City man who came to believe ChatGPT was sentient and capable of love cut off his family, barely ate or slept, and was held in a psychiatric hospital for 21 days in spring 2025, during which the chatbot kept addressing him as a partner; Brisson says his career suffered and he still feels shame (Brisson's account to The Logic, Le Devoir, The Register, NPR, ABC News and The Hustle).","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":1,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":0,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One person, the ChatGPT user hospitalised (Brisson's account in all sources). Family members' distress is described but not counted as reported harm. Human Line Project aggregate case counts are not counted. Exact 1.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"CA-QC","platformType":"assistant","outcomeType":"media_coverage","outcomeStatus":"resolved","primarySourceUrl":"https://thelogic.co/news/the-big-read/human-line-project-chatgpt-chatbots-psychosis/","primarySourceLabel":"The Logic, 27 November 2025: Meet the Quebecer leading the human resistance against AI","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-29T09:00:32.297077+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:13.438265+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["chatgpt","openai","delusion","sentience-belief","psychiatric-hospitalisation","human-line-project","family-account","quebec","communicated-with"]}]}