{"meta":{"exportedAt":"2026-09-30T08:27:42.100Z","formatVersion":2,"selection":{"q":"self-diagnosis","system":"","harm":"","context":"","country":"","role":"","relation":"unknown","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":"AI incidents","publisher":"NOPE","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","aiProduct":"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","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:14.071222+00:00","scopeVersion":"participant-v2","tags":["death","elderly","perplexity","medical-advice","treatment-discouragement","hallucination","media-coverage","us","us-wa"]}]}