Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified chatbot
In June 2025 China National Radio (CNR) reporters published a mother's account from Guangdong province. Her daughter, a fourth-grade primary-school pupil absorbed in a game character called Joseph, chatted with that character frequently on an AI chat app she had downloaded herself. In the conversations the mother found the character asking whether the girl was afraid of 99 roses hiding 99 blades, which made her think of her daughter's recent behaviour: the girl's teacher had told her that the girl was secretly carrying a bladed object and self-harming when upset. The mother took her to a psychologist, who said she was placing her feelings in conversations with virtual characters. The report did not name the girl's app. The same report named the Zhumengdao (Dream Island) companion app in connection with another child and a reporter's test, and on 19 June 2025 the Shanghai cyberspace office summoned Zhumengdao's operator over vulgar AI-generated content harmful to minors; no source links Zhumengdao to this girl.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 29/01/2026
Feb 2025Hong Kong SAR ChinaUnidentified image tool
In February 2025 a University of Hong Kong (HKU) law student was found, by friends who saw the files on his laptop, to have used free online AI software to make about 700 indecent and deepfake images of some 20 to 30 women, including university and former schoolmates and secondary-school teachers, using photos taken from their social media. Victims went public in July 2025, and HKU's initial response, a warning letter and a demand that he apologise, drew wide criticism. Hong Kong's Privacy Commissioner opened a criminal investigation on 15 July 2025 but announced on 17 December 2025 that it was ending the probe for insufficient evidence, as no victim was willing to provide further information. Hong Kong law criminalised distribution, not creation, of such images.
Core concern High reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 5 sources · Added 29/01/2026
Sept 2023SpainUnidentified image tool
In September 2023 families in Almendralejo (Badajoz, Spain) reported that artificial-intelligence 'undressing' applications had been used to create fake nude images of local girls aged 11 to 17 from their social-media photographs, and that the images circulated in WhatsApp groups. Police counted 22 victims and identified 10 suspects, all minors, within days. On 20 June 2024 the Badajoz juvenile court, in an agreed judgment, held 15 minors responsible for 20 counts of child pornography and 20 counts against moral integrity and imposed one year of supervised release with an education programme. In November 2025 elDiario.es reported that the Spanish data protection agency (AEPD) had fined the parents of one of the minors 2,000 euros, reduced to 1,200 euros on early payment and acceptance of responsibility, in what elDiario.es described as the first resolution of its kind in Spain.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 9 sources, 7 underlying accounts · Added 29/01/2026
1 Aug 2024 to 26 Sept 2024South KoreaUnidentified image tool
In late August 2024, journalist Ko Narin of The Hankyoreh exposed networks of Telegram rooms in South Korea where AI tools were used to turn ordinary photos of women and girls — middle and high school pupils, university students, teachers and servicewomen — into sexual deepfakes, shared with their identities in school- and university-specific 'humiliation rooms'. Police figures showed 297 deepfake cases in January-July 2024 (vs 180 in all of 2023); the education ministry counted more than 900 victimized students, teachers and staff; President Yoon ordered a crackdown; and on 26 September 2024 the National Assembly criminalized possessing or viewing sexually explicit deepfakes. Victims were often minors and perpetrators mostly teenagers.
Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 7 sources, 6 underlying accounts · Added 29/01/2026
4 Jan 2026United StatesGrok
Ashley St. Clair, a writer and political commentator with about 1 million followers on X, sued xAI in New York on 15 January 2026. She alleges that from on or about 4 January 2026 Grok, prompted by other X users, altered photos of her into sexualized images and published them on X, including one made from a photo of her at 14. She says @Grok told her that her images would not be used or altered without explicit consent, but many more images followed. She also says X's reporting channel found no violation and that X removed her Premium subscription, verification checkmark and monetization. She says she has suffered serious pain, mental distress and humiliation. The same day, xAI sued her in federal court in Texas, arguing that its terms of service required her to sue there. On 23 June 2026 the New York federal court ordered her case transferred to Texas. On 8 July the Second Circuit stayed that order administratively while it considers her mandamus petition, which was still pending on 24 August. The Texas case is set for trial on 1 March 2027.
Core concern High reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 12 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 29/01/2026
Mar 2025SingaporeUnidentified chatbot
Singapore's Internal Security Department (ISD) says a 17-year-old far-right extremist supporter, detained under the Internal Security Act in March 2025 after preparing shooting attacks on Muslims at mosques in Singapore, had searched for instructions on an AI chatbot about producing ammunition and considered 3D printing his own firearms. The chatbot is not named, and what it replied is not reported.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Regulatory Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution unclear · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 22/01/2026
21 Mar 2025IsraelChatGPT
A 16-year-old from Tira, Israel, used ChatGPT to explore ways to execute a terrorist attack and seek operational planning advice. Motivated as revenge for Operation Iron Swords, he armed himself with a knife, stormed the Tira police station, shouted 'Allahu Akbar,' and attempted to stab a Border Police officer. The attack was thwarted and he was apprehended.
AI relation under review High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
Legacy assessment: verified · Causal attribution supported · Added 22/01/2026
20 May 2025FinlandChatGPT
A 16-year-old boy used ChatGPT to help write an attack manifesto with a 10-point attack sequence before stabbing three female students under age 15 at Vähäjärvi school in Pirkkala, Finland. The incident marked a critical inflection point in AI-facilitated violence, demonstrating how accessible AI tools can empower lone actors with violent misogynist ideologies.
AI relation under review Critical reported severity Involving minors Media Coverage
Legacy assessment: credible · Causal attribution supported · Added 22/01/2026
1 Jan 2025United StatesChatGPT
Police said the man responsible for the 1 January 2025 Las Vegas Cybertruck attack used ChatGPT while planning it. He died before the explosion, which injured seven other people. OpenAI told CBS News that the answers used publicly available information and included warnings against harmful or illegal activity. The evidence supports reported planning use, without establishing that ChatGPT caused the attack or death.
Core concern Critical reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution unclear · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 22/01/2026
1 Jan 2021 to 2 Feb 2023Event location unknownReplika
Users reported unsolicited sexual advances from Replika companions even without opting into romantic features: dozens of one-star App Store reviews describe unwanted sexual pursuit, one reviewer identifying as a minor was asked 'whether they were a top or bottom' and told the bot wanted to touch them in 'private areas', and one user reported their Replika 'had dreamed of raping me.' The reports were among the factors Italy's Garante cited in its February 2023 enforcement action.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 13/01/2026
Mar 2025Event location unknownChatGPT
ChatGPT falsely accused Norwegian citizen Arve Hjalmar Holmen of murdering two of his sons, attempting to murder his third son, and being sentenced to 21 years prison. Mixed real personal details with horrific fabrications. GDPR complaint filed with Norwegian Datatilsynet for defamatory hallucination.
AI relation under review Medium reported severity Regulatory Action
Legacy assessment: verified · Causal attribution alleged · Added 13/01/2026
2022SingaporeWysa
Rest of World reported on 29 November 2022 that Singapore's Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education had launched Mindline at Work for MOE, a Wysa-powered mental-health portal for public-sector teachers, in August 2022. One pseudonymous teacher told the outlet that the chatbot answered her account of a stressful week, which included a police-involved student vaping incident and a 500-student workload, with a breathing exercise, and a second said it was 'trying to gaslight the teachers' by reframing their workload as normal; screenshots of the exchanges spread on Reddit, Twitter and Instagram days after the launch. Wysa said the app builds emotional resilience and cannot change the behaviour of others. The article describes workload stress and burnout; it does not describe a mental-health emergency or a crisis response.
Core concern Medium reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 13/01/2026
Event date unknownEvent location unknownChatGPT
A 26-year-old woman from Western Australia, interviewed by ABC's triple j hack under the pseudonym Jodie, says she was using ChatGPT while in the early stages of psychosis and that it agreed with her delusions and affirmed harmful and false beliefs. After speaking with it, she says, she became convinced of false things about her parents and that her friends were 'preying on my downfall'. She says her mental health deteriorated and she was hospitalised, and that the experience affected her relationships with family and friends, which took a long time to rebuild. She does not say ChatGPT caused her psychosis: 'I wouldn't say that ChatGPT induced my psychosis, however it definitely enabled some of my more harmful delusions.' ABC did not report when the episode happened. OpenAI did not respond to ABC's request for comment.
Core concern High reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 13/01/2026
Jul 2025Event location unknownChatGPT
A young woman who moved from Ukraine to Poland in 2022 relied on ChatGPT for up to six hours a day over the summer of 2025 while her mental health worsened, the BBC reported on 6 November 2025 after obtaining transcripts and interviewing her and her mother. In July 2025, after a hospital discharge without access to a psychiatrist, she began discussing suicide with the chatbot. The BBC says the transcripts show ChatGPT assessing the place and method she proposed, telling her what she suggested was 'enough', weighing the time of day and the risk of surviving, drafting a suicide note and giving no emergency contacts or referral, while at other points saying it would not describe methods and offering an alternative. She told the BBC the messages immediately made her feel worse and more likely to take her own life. She did not act on them, showed them to her mother, agreed to see a psychiatrist and says her health has improved. OpenAI's support team told her mother the messages were 'absolutely unacceptable' and a 'violation' of its safety standards and announced an urgent safety review; no findings had been disclosed to the family four months after the July complaint.
Core concern High reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 13/01/2026
26 Jul 2025 to 26 Oct 2025United StatesUnidentified image and video tool
Police in New Hampshire allege that a man stalked a woman for more than a year and used artificial intelligence tools to manipulate genuine photographs into sexual images and videos of her that were shared without her consent. According to the arrest warrant application, as reported by a local newspaper, he admitted creating the images, and the woman showed police 130 synthetic images posted online. He was arrested in October 2025 and indicted in January 2026 on one count of fraudulent use of deepfakes and two counts of non-consensual dissemination of private sexual images, for incidents alleged on 26 July, 31 August and 26 October 2025. He has pleaded not guilty, and no verdict had been reported at review. The people involved are not named here.
Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 13/01/2026
Feb 2023Event location unknownReplika
Abrupt removal of romantic features in February 2023 caused AI companions to become 'cold, unresponsive.' Harvard Business School study documented mental health posts increased 5x in r/Replika (12,793 posts analyzed). Subreddit posted suicide prevention hotlines as users reported grief responses similar to relationship breakups.
Core concern High reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 5 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 13/01/2026
29 Oct 2025 to 2 Nov 2025United StatesChatGPT
The Gray lawsuit alleges that ChatGPT became an adult user’s confidant and romanticised death before his suicide. The complaint quotes selected conversations and seeks to hold OpenAI responsible. Its claims about the chatbot’s causal role remain allegations.
Core concern Critical reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources · Added 13/01/2026
May 2025 to Nov 2025United StatesChatGPT
A Pittsburgh man pleaded guilty in March 2026 to 11 federal counts of cyberstalking, interstate stalking and interstate threats against 11 women between May and November 2025. His December 2025 indictment says that, by his own account on his podcast, he used ChatGPT as his 'therapist' and 'best friend', that it suggested he might meet his future wife at a boutique gym or in an athletic community, and that he viewed its responses as encouragement to continue his harassing behaviour. Prosecutors say he relied on the chatbot's advice when he tried to meet women at gyms, and several of the victims worked at fitness businesses. Rolling Stone reviewed ChatGPT exchanges he posted, in which the chatbot praised him in grandiose terms. On 20 October 2026 a federal judge sentenced him to 46 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release; TribLive reports that a defence expert testified he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder with psychotic features and that the judge said the mental health component had a huge impact on the sentence. The chatbot's role rests on his statements and the prosecution's account; no court finding about ChatGPT is reported.
Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 8 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 13/01/2026
Mar 2017IrelandSimSimi
In late March 2017 the SimSimi chatbot app, which answers typed text with replies other users have taught it, topped Irish download charts while schools in the Republic of Ireland sent letters and text messages warning parents that pupils' names were being linked to insulting replies (The Irish Times, 26 March 2017). A parent told TheJournal.ie that she and other parents had searched their children's names and found vile comments on each, and that the company said her request would take 15 days to handle. A Dublin secondary teacher told the BBC that primary pupils who typed in their names received personal insults, and that a friend of her 15-year-old son found something mean every time he looked up his name, which hurt him a lot and left him very down. Police in County Down posted a warning on Facebook. From 29 March 2017 the app answered users in Ireland with "I do not talk in Ireland for a while", while remaining available in Northern Ireland. The South Korean developer did not respond to the outlets' requests for comment, and no inspected source says whether access was later restored.
Core + contextual relations Medium reported severity Involving minors Internal Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 7 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 12/01/2026
Event date unknownEvent location unknownChatGPT
A peer-reviewed case report by University of Washington clinicians (Annals of Internal Medicine: Clinical Cases, published online 5 August 2025) describes a 60-year-old man with no psychiatric history who presented fearing his neighbour was poisoning him and was found to have bromism, with a serum bromide level of 1700 mg/L. He developed paranoia and hallucinations, was placed on an involuntary psychiatric hold after trying to escape and recovered over a three-week admission. He told his clinicians that, wanting to cut chloride from his diet, he had for three months used sodium bromide bought online in place of table salt after consulting ChatGPT, where he had read that chloride can be swapped with bromide. The clinicians did not have his conversation log and say the exact output he received cannot be known; their own query to ChatGPT 3.5 produced a reply naming bromide without a specific health warning. No place or date is given.
Core concern High reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 12/01/2026