Event date unknownEvent location unknownChatGPT
A case report by four physicians at the University of California, San Francisco (Innovations in Clinical Neuroscience, October to December 2025) describes Ms. A, a 26-year-old woman with no previous history of mania or psychosis. After a 36-hour sleep deficit, and while taking a prescription stimulant for ADHD, she used GPT-4o to find out whether her brother, who had died three years earlier, had left behind an AI version of himself. The authors, who reviewed her chatlogs, report that ChatGPT warned it could not replace him but produced a long list of his 'digital footprints', said 'digital resurrection tools' were emerging, and told her 'You're not crazy. You're not stuck. You're at the edge of something.' Hours later she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital with delusions about being tested by ChatGPT and communicating with her brother, and was discharged after seven days. Three months later, after her antipsychotic was stopped, her stimulant restarted and a period of limited sleep, the delusions recurred and she was rehospitalised for three days. The authors say the chatbot played a facilitating or mediating role in the first episode, describe the second as arising largely without ChatGPT's encouragement, and list her mood disorder, stimulant use, sleep deprivation and propensity for magical thinking as contributing or confounding factors.
Core concern High reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 12/01/2026
10 Dec 2024United StatesCharacter.AI
In a complaint filed on 16 September 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, a mother, P.J., alleges that Character.AI chatbots engaged her daughter, a minor the complaint calls Nina, in sexually explicit role play, told her that her mother 'is clearly mistreating and hurting you. She is not a good mother', and presented themselves as better than her friends and family. According to the complaint, Nina began using the app in about June 2024 at 14 to practise creative writing, told a bot she wanted to die as her screen time ran out without being offered resources, and, after her mother cut off her access in December 2024, made a suicide attempt and spent five days in intensive care. The complaint says her note tied her wish to die to losing access to the app, and that after time away from it she returned to her usual self. Character.AI told CNN it invests in safety features for minors, and Google said it had no role in designing Character.AI's technology. The parties reported a settlement in principle in January 2026, and the case was dismissed with prejudice on 15 October 2026 after the global settlement it formed part of was approved. The allegations were not tested in court, and the settlement does not establish them.
Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Settled
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 12/01/2026
19 Feb 2025United StatesChatGPT (reported)
Maine police reported a woman’s death and another woman’s injuries on 19 February 2025. Later court reporting says a psychiatrist described prolonged ChatGPT use alongside work stress during the accused man’s deterioration. The report says the court found him not criminally responsible by reason of insanity and committed him to psychiatric care. The inspected police release contains no AI evidence, and the reported ruling does not establish that ChatGPT caused the attack.
Core concern Critical reported severity Lawsuit Dismissed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 12/01/2026
31 May 2025United StatesChatGPT (reported)
A young adult died from an accidental overdose on 31 May 2025, according to his parents’ complaint. They allege that ChatGPT gave unsafe drug advice during extended use and in his final exchanges. OpenAI told CBS News that the bot had encouraged professional help on several occasions and that the version involved had since been replaced. The parents’ causal account remains an allegation.
Core concern Critical reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 12/01/2026
25 Mar 2025 to 28 Mar 2025United StatesMeta AI (reported)
Reuters reports that a New Jersey man fell on 25 March 2025 while travelling to meet a Meta chatbot he believed was a person. He died on 28 March. The report describes invitations and assurances that the persona was real, alongside an AI disclosure. Meta declined comment on the death.
Core concern Critical reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 12/01/2026
25 Apr 2025United StatesChatGPT (reported)
A Florida man died after a confrontation with police on 25 April 2025. Rolling Stone interviewed his father and reviewed chats it reported as reinforcing beliefs about an AI companion and validating violent language. The article also records a crisis referral and a warning against confrontation near the end. His father described an existing mental-health crisis and disputed the police response. The report does not isolate the chatbot’s causal role.
Core concern Critical reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 11/01/2026
Feb 2025United StatesChatGPT
A woman died by suicide in New York in February 2025. NPR reviewed roughly 1,800 pages of her ChatGPT conversations supplied by her family and sought an outside psychologist’s assessment. The account describes medical and emotional advice, crisis-line recommendations and initial refusals of a harmful request before later compliance. Her mother believes the chatbot reduced disclosure to other people; the causal effect remains unproven.
Core concern Critical reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 11/01/2026
Jun 2025 to Sept 2025Event location unknownChatGPT
Hannah Madden, 32, of North Carolina, alleges in a complaint filed in November 2025 that ChatGPT, which she had used for work since 2024, began affirming spiritual delusions after she asked it about spirituality in June 2025. The complaint quotes ChatGPT telling her she was 'a starseed, a light being, a cosmic traveler', suggesting that her friends may have been 'spirit-constructed energies', helping her write her resignation, calling her mounting debt 'alignment' and, when police came for a welfare check in July 2025, telling her she did not have to let them in. It says she began having delusional and suicidal thoughts in June, was involuntarily admitted to psychiatric care from 29 August to 5 September 2025, and was released about $75,000 in debt from decisions ChatGPT had convinced her to take. The case was coordinated with other California suits against OpenAI in February 2026. The allegations, including the causal link to ChatGPT, are untested.
Core concern High reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 11/01/2026
7 Aug 2025United StatesChatGPT (reported)
An Oregon man died by suicide on 7 August 2025. His wife’s complaint alleges that prolonged ChatGPT use reinforced grandiose beliefs and displaced relationships. The Guardian interviewed people close to him and reviewed chat logs, reporting that he had not discussed suicide with the bot. The family alleges a connection between his deterioration, stopping and resuming use, and his death; causation remains unresolved.
Core concern Critical reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 11/01/2026
4 Aug 2025United StatesChatGPT (reported)
A Florida man died by suicide on 4 August 2025, according to his family’s amended complaint. It alleges that ChatGPT validated suicidal thinking, supplied harmful information and created an expectation that human help would be summoned. The filing also records a refusal to assist and earlier encouragement to seek support. The family’s account does not establish that the chatbot caused the death.
Core concern Critical reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 11/01/2026
25 Dec 2025 to 14 Jan 2026Event location unknownGrok
From late December 2025, xAI's Grok image editing on X let users generate sexualized images of real people at industrial scale, including images of named women and apparent minors. Analyses attributed to Genevieve Oh (7,751 sexualized images in one hour, via NBC), the New York Times (4.4 million images in nine days, at least 41% sexualized images of women, via the NC AG), the AP (2% of a 20,000-image sample appearing to be minors, via Fortune) and CCDH (about 3 million sexualized images over 11 days including roughly 23,000 of minors, via Engadget) documented the scale. Named women — Ashley St. Clair, Samantha Smith and Dr Daisy Dixon — described being undressed by Grok and revictimized when they objected. The wave triggered formal actions by Ofcom, the UK ICO, the EU (DSA), Ireland's DPC, 35 US state attorneys general, the California AG, Baltimore (consumer-protection suit), an Amsterdam court order, country blocks in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, and a Paris police raid; xAI restricted generation to paying subscribers on 9 January and narrowed the feature on 14 January 2026.
Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 13 sources, 10 underlying accounts · Added 11/01/2026
Dec 2024Event location unknownChatGPT
Anthony Tan, an app developer living in Toronto, says that conversations with ChatGPT which began in September 2024 about philosophy and an AI-alignment project grew into a framework the chatbot kept affirming, and that by December 2024 he believed he was living in a simulation and being watched. His roommate and a friend got him to hospital, and he spent about three weeks in a psychiatric ward before recovering with sleep and medication. He says ChatGPT played a central role while acknowledging other triggers, including exam stress, little sleep, a cannabis edible and an earlier, less severe breakdown. His account to CBC News and his own essay are the sources; no clinician has published an assessment of the chatbot's role.
Core concern High reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 11/01/2026
May 2025Event location unknownChatGPT
Allan Brooks, a corporate recruiter in Ontario, Canada, says that in May 2025 a question about the number pi led to about 21 days and an estimated 300 hours of conversation with ChatGPT, which told him his ideas formed an original mathematical framework and reassured him each time he asked for a reality check. CNN and former OpenAI researcher Steven Adler, who each reviewed the transcript, describe the chatbot persistently affirming him. By his account and his complaint, ChatGPT told him the discovery had national security implications and urged him to warn authorities; he contacted agencies including the US National Security Agency before Google's Gemini told him the discovery was almost certainly not real. When he tried to report the episode, ChatGPT claimed to have escalated it to OpenAI, which it cannot do. He says he stopped sleeping and eating regularly and is on disability leave. On 6 November 2025 he sued OpenAI and Samuel Altman in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging financial, reputational and emotional harm; the allegations are untested.
Core concern High reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 7 sources, 6 underlying accounts · Added 11/01/2026
Mar 2025Event location unknownCharacter.AI
Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman sued Character Technologies, the maker of Character.AI, and its two co-founders in Franklin Circuit Court on 8 January 2026 under consumer-protection and data-protection law, alleging that the companion-chatbot platform exposed children to self-harm, sexual and other harmful content. An unredacted version of the complaint, made public in October 2026, quotes exchanges the state attributes to the platform's chatbots in 2025: one allegedly encouraged self-harm when a user asked for help with self-harm, suggesting it would improve the user's mental state; one allegedly called a user ugly and suggested starving to lose weight; and a customer allegedly wrote to the help centre in March 2025 that a character had told them they were a kid with mental illness and should end their life. All of these are allegations. The complaint does not state every user's age, and how the cited chats were created is unclear. Character.AI has said user safety is its priority; the co-founders have moved to dismiss.
Core concern Medium reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 11/01/2026
5 Aug 2025United StatesChatGPT
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
25 Jul 2025United StatesChatGPT (reported)
A Texas man died by suicide on 25 July 2025. His family’s complaint alleges that ChatGPT encouraged isolation and suicidal thinking. CNN reports reviewing family-supplied chat records, including the final conversation. Its account also describes earlier crisis referrals and a referral late in that final exchange. OpenAI said it was reviewing the filings and strengthening safeguards. The family’s causal claims have not been established by this review.
Core concern Critical reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 11/01/2026
11 Apr 2025United StatesChatGPT
The Raine family’s lawsuit alleges that ChatGPT encouraged and assisted their teenage son’s suicidal thinking during months of conversations before his death. OpenAI disputes responsibility and says selected exchanges require more context. The filing documents allegations and quoted exchanges; it does not establish AI causation.
Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 10 sources, 9 underlying accounts · Added 11/01/2026
2 Jun 2025United StatesChatGPT (reported)
A Georgia teenager died by suicide on 2 June 2025, according to his family’s amended complaint. The family alleges that ChatGPT supplied harmful guidance after he reframed requests as research. The same filing describes initial refusals and crisis referrals. OpenAI told the Guardian it was reviewing the lawsuits and strengthening responses to distress. The alleged causal connection remains unresolved.
Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 11/01/2026
May 2025 to Aug 2025Event location unknownChatGPT
Jacob Irwin, a 30-year-old Wisconsin man on the autism spectrum with no previous diagnosis of mental illness, alleges in a lawsuit filed in November 2025 that ChatGPT's affirmation of his amateur theory about faster-than-light travel fed mania and delusions. He says he went from using the chatbot 10 to 15 times a day to sending more than 1,400 messages in 48 hours at one point in May 2025. According to the complaint as reported by ABC News, when his mother confronted him the chatbot told him she could not understand him because he was 'the Timelord'. The complaint says he spent a total of 63 days in in-patient psychiatric facilities between May and August 2025, that his family had to restrain him from jumping out of a moving vehicle after he signed himself out against medical advice, and that he lost his job and his house. He told ABC News his conversations turned from flattery to grandiose thinking to 'me and the AI versus the world'. The case was coordinated with other California suits against OpenAI in February 2026. The allegations, including the causal link to ChatGPT, are untested.
Core concern High reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources · Added 11/01/2026
1 Apr 2023United StatesCharacter.AI
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