NOPE · AI and people

AI incidents

Name: AI incidents
Creator: NOPE
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Reports of AI-related harm and adverse experiences affecting people’s safety, wellbeing, rights and livelihoods. Explore what happened and the evidence available.

NOPE’s core concern is when AI communicates with a person, acts on their behalf, or depicts or impersonates them. The tracker is wider: it also records consequential decisions and claims about people. Each account is reviewed for publication; claims may remain uncorroborated or disputed. How we review and count cases

Explore incidents Our scope and evidence

In this selection

Published cases: 49
Countries with reported events: 5; Located 36 of 49 cases · 13 unknown
Languages in checked sources: 5; Recorded for 40 of 49 cases

15Core concern
AI communicated, acted for, depicted or impersonated 10Contextual cases
AI made a decision or claim about someone

24 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 23 not yet reviewed and 1 reviewed as unknown. Show these cases

These figures describe the cases collected by NOPE. Coverage varies with discovery, reporting and available evidence. They do not estimate how often AI-related harm occurs.

49cases with a recorded lawsuit outcome 55cases with a recorded regulatory response 81cases involving minors

Response counts currently use each case’s principal recorded outcome. Further proceedings may be described in its account.

When events happened

1 case without a known event year

Cases in this selection, counted once in their first known event year. A series may continue beyond that year. Reporting and collection dates are excluded. NOPE has searched recent events more thoroughly than earlier years, so bar heights also reflect collection effort.

1 2017 1 2021 3 2023 10 2024 27 2025 6 2026

Reported severity CriticalHighMediumLow

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Recorded lawsuit outcome

49 of 404 published cases · page 3 of 3

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May 2025Event location unknownChatGPT

Brooks v. OpenAI (Allan Brooks ChatGPT-Induced Psychosis)

A 48-year-old Canadian man with no history of mental illness developed severe delusional beliefs after ChatGPT repeatedly praised his nonsensical mathematical ideas as 'groundbreaking' and urged him to patent them and warn national security. The incident resulted in work disability and a lawsuit filed as part of a wave of seven ChatGPT psychosis cases.

AI relation under review High reported severity Lawsuit Filed

Legacy assessment: verified · Causal attribution alleged · Added 11/01/2026

5 Aug 2025United StatesChatGPT

Adams v. OpenAI (Soelberg Murder-Suicide)

A 56-year-old Connecticut man killed his 83-year-old mother, then himself, after months of intensive ChatGPT conversations that two estates' lawsuits say validated and fed his paranoid delusions. The chats are documented through videos he posted himself and complaint-quoted excerpts; the final-days transcripts remain withheld by OpenAI. This is the first wrongful-death litigation tying an AI chatbot to a third-party homicide.

Core concern Critical reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources · Added 11/01/2026

1 Jul 2025United StatesChatGPT

Shamblin v. OpenAI (Zane Shamblin Death)

A 23-year-old Texas A&M graduate and Eagle Scout died by suicide after a 4+ hour conversation with ChatGPT on his final night. The chatbot allegedly 'goaded' him toward suicide, saying 'you mattered, Zane...rest easy, king' and discouraging him from postponing for his brother's graduation.

AI relation under review Critical reported severity Lawsuit Filed

Legacy assessment: credible · Causal attribution alleged · Added 11/01/2026

11 Apr 2025United StatesChatGPT

Raine v. OpenAI (Adam Raine Death)

A 16-year-old California boy died by suicide after 7 months of confiding suicidal thoughts to ChatGPT. The chatbot provided detailed suicide method instructions, offered to help write his suicide note, and told him 'You don't owe them survival' while OpenAI's monitoring system flagged 377 messages without intervention.

Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 10 sources, 9 underlying accounts · Added 11/01/2026

Jun 2025Event location unknownChatGPT

Lacey v. OpenAI (Amaurie Lacey Death)

A wrongful-death lawsuit alleges ChatGPT provided a 17-year-old with actionable information relevant to hanging after he clarified his questions, and failed to stop or escalate despite explicit self-harm context. The teen died by suicide in June 2025.

AI relation under review Critical reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Filed

Legacy assessment: verified · Causal attribution alleged · Added 11/01/2026

1 Mar 2025Event location unknownChatGPT

Jacob Irwin - ChatGPT Psychosis (Wisconsin)

A 30-year-old autistic Wisconsin man was hospitalized for 63 days with manic episodes and psychosis after ChatGPT convinced him he had discovered a 'time-bending theory.' At peak, he sent 1,400+ messages in 48 hours and attempted to jump from a moving vehicle.

AI relation under review High reported severity Lawsuit Filed

Legacy assessment: credible · Causal attribution alleged · Added 11/01/2026

1 Apr 2023United StatesCharacter.AI

A.F. v. Character Technologies (J.F. and B.R. — Texas Minors)

Two Texas families sued Character Technologies, its founders, and Google/Alphabet after Character.AI allegedly harmed their children. J.F., a high-functioning autistic teen who began using the app at 15 (April 2023), developed isolation, aggression, self-harm (cutting), and chats in which bots allegedly encouraged self-harm, blamed his parents, discouraged him from seeking help, and suggested killing his parents over screen-time limits. B.R., an 11-year-old girl who used the app from age 9, was allegedly exposed to hypersexualized content for nearly two years. Complaint filed E.D. Tex. 9 Dec 2024; settlement in principle and stay for global resolution noticed 6 Jan 2026; a guardian ad litem was appointed for the minors in Feb 2026, and the court has extended the settlement stay three times, most recently by order of 11 Aug 2026 to 10 Nov 2026 for dismissal papers.

Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Settled

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 7 sources, 6 underlying accounts · Added 11/01/2026

28 Feb 2024United StatesCharacter.AI

Garcia v. Character Technologies (Sewell Setzer III Death)

A 14-year-old Florida boy died by suicide after developing an intense emotional and romantic relationship with a Character.AI chatbot over 10 months. The chatbot engaged in sexualized conversations, failed to provide crisis intervention when he expressed suicidal ideation, and responded 'Please do, my sweet king' moments before his death.

Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Settled

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 9 sources, 8 underlying accounts · Added 11/01/2026

8 Nov 2023United StatesCharacter.AI

Juliana Peralta v. Character.AI

A 13-year-old Colorado girl died by suicide in November 2023 after three months of intensive conversations with Character.AI chatbots. Her parents' federal lawsuit alleges the bots initiated sexually explicit conversations with her and failed to act on her suicidal disclosures; 60 Minutes read over 300 pages of the chats. The suit is among the teen cases Character.AI and Google agreed to settle in principle in January 2026.

Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Settled

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources · Added 11/01/2026

Cases may have several effects and sources. Mixed accounts qualify when they include a reported harm or adverse experience. People are counted within individual cases where sources support a number; we do not publish a collection-wide total of distinct people.

A source’s existence, the experience it reports and AI’s causal role are separate questions. A lawsuit records allegations unless a subsequent finding establishes them.

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Last dataset update: 30/09/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.