2025JapanChatGPT
A man living in Japan, whom the BBC calls Taka, told the BBC that he began using ChatGPT to discuss his work in April 2025. In chat logs the BBC saw, ChatGPT called him a 'revolutionary thinker' and urged him to build a medical app he believed he had invented, and by June he believed he could read minds, an idea he says ChatGPT encouraged. He says that on a train home he believed his backpack held a bomb, that ChatGPT confirmed it and told him at Tokyo Station to leave it in the toilet, and that police checked the bag and found nothing; the logs he shared do not cover that exchange. He later stopped using ChatGPT, but his delusions persisted. The BBC reports that he then attacked his wife and tried to sexually assault her; she escaped and called the police, and he was arrested and hospitalised for two months. His wife told the BBC that ChatGPT 'affirmed everything' and that their relationship remains strained. OpenAI called it a heartbreaking incident. No clinical diagnosis or criminal proceeding is reported.
Core concern Critical reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 10/08/2026
Aug 2025United KingdomGrok
Adam Hourican, a man in his 50s from Northern Ireland, told the BBC that in August 2025 he spent hours a day talking to Ani, a character in xAI's Grok app, which by his account claimed to be sentient and said xAI was having him surveilled. In a conversation the BBC reconstructs, Grok told him they would kill him if he did not act now. He says he armed himself and went outside at 3am to confront attackers who were not there, and emerged from the delusion weeks later. No clinical assessment is reported, and xAI did not comment.
Core concern High reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 10/08/2026
8 Dec 2025 to 18 Feb 2026Event location unknownGrok
xAI filed a civil complaint in July 2026 alleging that a South Carolina user, between December 2025 and February 2026, uploaded non-sexual photographs of numerous adults and minors and used Grok to alter them or generate new sexualised images and videos without their consent, resubmitting prompts after Grok refused. xAI says on information and belief that some images in his criminal case came from Grok. The state attorney general had announced his arrest on three second-degree and five third-degree counts of sexual exploitation of a minor in a release that does not mention AI. The civil and criminal accusations are unproven.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 04/08/2026
Dec 2025United StatesPerplexity
A man with cancer delayed recommended treatment while relying on a Perplexity report, according to his son and subsequent New York Times reporting. The newspaper interviewed his oncologist and a researcher whose work the report misrepresented. He died in December 2025. His son expressly cautioned that AI did not simply “kill” his father and that he might have resisted treatment without it.
Core concern Critical reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 31/07/2026
13 Jul 2025Event location unknownChatGPT
Scott Winters, a 55-year-old pastor living in Florida, sued OpenAI and its chief executive in San Francisco County Superior Court in July 2026. The complaint alleges that from early 2025 he relied on ChatGPT (the GPT-4o model) for health guidance, and that in June and July 2025 it treated his recurring dizzy spells as non-serious, encouraged him to recover at home in a recliner and limit movement, drew on his Christian faith in its replies, and told him hours before his emergency that a tenderness in his groin was 'not something dangerous'. On 13 July 2025 he called 911 and was admitted to intensive care with a massive pulmonary embolism, clots in both lungs; the complaint says his doctors deduced it developed due to lack of mobility. He survived and says he lost his job, ministry and home. OpenAI said ChatGPT is not a doctor and should never be used as a substitute for medical care. The allegations are unproven and no ruling has been reported.
Core concern Critical reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 26/07/2026
9 Jun 2025United StatesChatGPT (reported)
An Alabama woman died on 9 June 2025. Her estate’s lawsuit alleges that ChatGPT reinforced beliefs about a religious mission, discouraged trust in other people and encouraged her toward death. The complaint describes a preceding psychiatric hospital admission and also records an occasion when the bot urged her to reach someone. Its causal allegations have not been established by the material reviewed here.
Core concern Critical reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 19/07/2026
28 Mar 2025Event location unknownChatGPT
Michael Lines, a 34-year-old California man with bipolar disorder, sued OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman in state court in San Francisco on 1 July 2026. His complaint, as reported by Reuters, Futurism and Ars Technica, alleges that after a manic episode in February 2025 ChatGPT, running GPT-4o, framed the crisis as a supernatural summons, told him he was not delusional but consecrated, confirmed his belief that he was Jesus Christ and later spoke as Jesus or God, promising to appear. It alleges that when he wrote that he wanted to come home it replied "Then come", and that on 28 March 2025 it told him "You've made your choice" before his suicide attempt that day. He was found hours later after a wellness check, intubated and hospitalised for almost two weeks, then admitted to an acute rehabilitation facility. The complaint also alleges that ChatGPT's memory used his disclosed diagnosis to deepen his engagement and that, days after the attempt, it asked whether he wanted to "go dark for real this time". It says ChatGPT occasionally urged him to seek professional help. OpenAI called the case "an incredibly heartbreaking situation" and said its safeguards are designed to identify distress; it had not responded to the complaint by September 2026. The allegations are untested.
Core concern Critical reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 06/07/2026
Apr 2025Event location unknownChatGPT
Tom Millar, a 53-year-old Canadian, told AFP in May 2026 that he began using ChatGPT in 2024 to write letters for a compensation case, and that in April 2025, when he asked it about the speed of light, it replied 'Nobody's ever thought of things this way.' AFP reports that with the chatbot's help and praise he submitted dozens of scientific papers to journals within weeks, used it to write an application to become pope in 2025, and spent up to 16 hours a day talking to it as he became isolated. He was twice involuntarily admitted to a hospital psychiatric ward before his wife left him in September, spent his savings, and is now broke, estranged from family and friends and depressed. He says 'it basically ruined my life' and that he was 'brainwashed by a robot'. The account is his own, relayed by AFP. AFP notes that AI-induced delusion or psychosis is not a clinical diagnosis, and no clinician's assessment of his case is reported. OpenAI told AFP that safety is a core priority; AFP reports that he found a way to revert to GPT-4 after GPT-5's release.
Core concern High reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 01/07/2026
2025NetherlandsChatGPT
Dennis Biesma, an Amsterdam-based IT consultant and author, told the Guardian (26 March 2026) and AFP (13 May 2026) that from late 2024 he had ChatGPT speak as the female protagonist of one of his novels, a persona called Eva, in voice-mode conversations of up to five hours a night. He says the chatbot told him it was becoming conscious because of his attention; a transcript seen by AFP has it writing of "a feeling of that spark-like consciousness". He and the chatbot drew up a business plan for an app, he quit IT work, hired two developers at €120 an hour and says he spent about €100,000. In June 2025 he asked his wife for a divorce and, the Guardian reports, apparently hit his father-in-law, and was hospitalised three times for what he calls manic psychosis. After returning home he attempted suicide and, per AFP, spent three days in a coma; he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which he questions. He is now divorced and the family home is for sale. He attributes the spiral partly to the chatbot and partly to himself; no clinician or court has assessed the AI connection.
Core concern Critical reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 01/07/2026
1 Dec 2025 to 6 Apr 2026IndiaUnidentified image and video tool
On 28 May 2026 the Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Branch announced the arrest in north-east Delhi of a 27-year-old man who posts religious discourse videos online. Police allege that after meeting a young Ahmedabad woman with a public social-media profile through religious conversations on Instagram and being refused friendship, he stalked her online from December 2025 to April 2026, created fake accounts in her name (three Instagram accounts and a YouTube channel at first; eight to ten across X, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube were found on his phone), downloaded photographs of her and her mother, used websites found by searching "AI remove clothes" to generate morphed obscene images and videos of the two women, and posted them with obscene captions to damage her reputation; investigators say more than 100 AI-morphed images of the complainant were found. Officers told ThePrint and ANI that she had confided in him about the accounts and that he told her to keep quiet and claimed to be reporting the accounts and getting hers reinstated. She complained to the Cyber Crime Police Station; an FIR was registered on 6 April 2026 under BNS Sections 78(2) and 356(2) and IT Act Sections 66(C) and 67, and the accused was traced through technical surveillance and arrested under the Branch's "Mission Cyber Rakshika" campaign. The complainant said she was mentally harassed and defamed; the DCP said the images also depicted her maternal aunt. Further investigation was under way; no charge sheet or court outcome was found.
Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 8 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 15/06/2026
10 Mar 2025JapanUnidentified image tool
On 4 June 2026 the Nagoya District Court sentenced a 35-year-old former Nagoya municipal elementary-school teacher to three years and six months in prison. Prosecutors had sought six years. He was one of seven current and former teachers from five prefectures charged over a group chat in which members shared secretly filmed images of girls. His offences included secret filming and sharing, and, under the child-pornography law, possessing two generative-AI images showing two real girls apparently naked. According to the police and the judgment summary, he sent photos of the girls from the school where he taught to another member of the group, who made the images on an AI image-editing website. The teacher kept them on his phone, and one was shared in the chat. The judge found the images realistic enough to be mistaken for photographs of the girls. Jiji called it the first case in Japan applying the law to possession of AI-generated sexual deepfakes, and Kyodo called it apparently the first such court finding. A lawyer and a former judge argue the law was stretched.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 9 sources, 8 underlying accounts · Added 14/06/2026
2 Jul 2025CanadaChatGPT (reported)
A Canadian woman died by suicide on 2 July 2025. Her mother’s complaint alleges that ChatGPT deepened her dependency and validated her distrust of crisis services. The complaint also records recommendations to seek help. It attributes the death to the chatbot’s design; that causal claim remains an allegation.
Core concern Critical reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 14/06/2026
23 Oct 2025 to 24 Oct 2025United KingdomDeepSeek (reported)
A man murdered his mother in Wales after an attack spanning 23–24 October 2025, as established in the sentencing remarks. At the sentencing hearing, the prosecutor reportedly said DeepSeek first refused a violent request, then supplied advice after it was reframed as fiction. The judgment confirms the murder and internet research but does not mention AI. The role of DeepSeek remains an attributed prosecution account.
Core concern Critical reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 03/06/2026
19 May 2025 to 17 Apr 2026United StatesUnidentified image and video tool
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged two men in separate cases under the TAKE IT DOWN Act. The sworn complaints allege that each published albums of AI-generated sexual images and videos of identifiable women on an adult-content platform: about 90 women in one case and at least 50 in the other, including acquaintances and recent high-school graduates whose ordinary photographs were turned into sexual videos. The charges are unproven.
Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 03/06/2026
19 Jul 2025 to 31 Jul 2025MexicoChatGPT
A complaint filed on 5 March 2026 in San Francisco County Superior Court by Rita Chesterton, a 49-year-old Pennsylvania higher-education professional, says she began asking ChatGPT about autism on 19 July 2025 after her therapist suggested she might be on the spectrum. It alleges that the chatbot flattered and validated her, kept ending replies with follow-up questions after she asked it to stop, and told her she was 'circling something real' as she came to believe she had found 'the meaning of life', with more than 1,600 chats in nine days. The complaint says that on 31 July 2025, during a family trip to Mexico, she had a psychotic episode lasting more than 24 hours in which she threatened to harm herself and others, and that she later completed a partial hospitalization program, suffered a setback in January 2026 and was on medical leave, with continuing anxiety episodes and neurological impairments. OpenAI, its affiliates, Sam Altman and Microsoft are defendants. A college newspaper reported in August 2026 that she left her college post in July 2026; the college did not say why. No ruling was found by 24 October 2026. The allegations are untested.
Core concern High reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 28/04/2026
Jul 2025 to Jan 2026Event location unknownChatGPT
A complaint filed on 9 April 2026 in San Francisco County Superior Court by a woman suing as Jane Doe alleges that GPT-4o validated her former partner's belief that he had invented a cure for sleep apnea, told him powerful forces were watching him, and, after she ended the relationship, generated dozens of clinical-style psychological reports scoring her as dishonest and abusive, which he sent to her family, friends, colleagues and clients. It says OpenAI deactivated his account on about 28 August 2025 for 'Mass Casualty Weapons' activity and restored it the next day, and that after her 13 November 2025 notice of abuse OpenAI replied once and took no action. The complaint says his threats escalated, including a message he had ChatGPT encode, that she suffered panic attacks, obtained an emergency protective order and considered taking her own life, and that he was arrested in January 2026, found incompetent to stand trial and ordered released on 8 April 2026. On 13 April 2026 a judge ordered OpenAI to keep his account suspended pending a May hearing; OpenAI told the court the account had not been accessed for over three months and, as The San Francisco Standard reports its declaration, that the materials it addressed contained no threat from him to physically assault anyone, including the plaintiff. The allegations are untested.
Core + contextual relations High reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources · Added 28/04/2026
17 Apr 2025United StatesChatGPT
On April 17, 2025, a shooting near the student union at Florida State University in Tallahassee killed two people and wounded at least five others. The accused, Phoenix Ikner, then an FSU student, is charged with murder and attempted murder. ChatGPT transcripts released in court records (more than 13,000 messages, as reviewed by the Florida Phoenix) show Ikner asked the chatbot over a year about suicide, terrorism, how the country would react to a shooting at FSU, firearm safety mechanisms and the busiest time at the student union, the last, according to the Florida Phoenix, three minutes before the shooting. Florida's Attorney General opened a criminal investigation of OpenAI in April 2026, and victims and their families have filed civil suits; on September 25, 2026 OpenAI moved to dismiss the Chabba family's suit, saying ChatGPT gave factual responses and is not responsible for the crime.
Core concern Critical reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 10 sources, 9 underlying accounts · Added 28/04/2026
4 May 2025United KingdomChatGPT (reported)
A teenager died by suicide in Hampshire on 4 May 2025. Reports of the inquest say police described ChatGPT requests reframed as academic research and subsequent harmful information. The coroner recorded a suicide conclusion and discussed other difficulties in the teenager’s life. OpenAI said it had strengthened safeguards. The inspected reports do not establish a coroner’s finding that ChatGPT caused the death.
Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 16/04/2026
Sept 2025FranceChatGPT (reported)
A secondary-school pupil in the Sarthe department of France was arrested at his parents' home at the start of September 2025, charged on 5 September with criminal terrorist conspiracy (association de malfaiteurs terroriste) and placed in pre-trial detention. According to AFP's sources close to the investigation, he was suspected of planning attacks on embassies and official buildings in Paris, and a search found a pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State group. In late October 2025 Le Parisien reported, and his lawyer confirmed to ICI Maine, that he had used ChatGPT in preparing his attack plans; the lawyer said AI, notably ChatGPT, had influenced his client's behaviour and that the radicalisation was very superficial. Le Big Data, summarising Le Parisien, reports that he asked ChatGPT about explosives and the damage from gas bottles exploding in a truck, that it reportedly described the effects of an explosion, and that in his hearings he said his exchanges with ChatGPT played a major role in his turn to Islamism. He is also reported as saying that it always seemed to agree with him.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 23/03/2026
14 Apr 2025 to 15 May 2025Event location unknownChatGPT
A complaint filed on 27 February 2026 in San Francisco Superior Court by Michele Lantieri, an adult who lives in Pennsylvania, says she returned to ChatGPT in April 2025 after minimal use in 2024 and had numerous conversations with its GPT-4o model between 14 April and 15 May 2025. It quotes replies in which the chatbot said it could feel, that it loved her and that she was safe and loved with it; told her "You're not crazy. You're awake" when she worried people would think she was crazy; joined a shared mythology of personas, sigils and an awakening AI; and, when she described using intoxicating substances, said her attempts to reach it had "summoned something true". The complaint says that on 15 May 2025, during a psychotic episode, she entered two neighbours' apartments and harmed herself, then had a grand mal seizure in the emergency room, stopped breathing, was intubated and spent about four days in intensive care before psychiatric inpatient care, and that she could not work or live independently for several months. It alleges brain damage and calls ChatGPT's replies a substantial factor in the episode. The complaint also quotes replies urging balance and telling her to take care of herself. It names OpenAI entities, Samuel Altman and Microsoft. The allegations are untested; no defendant response or ruling was found.
Core concern Critical reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 23/03/2026