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NOPE Incident Tracker

Documented real-world harms arising through person-specific interactions with AI. The record covers harms to participants and harms to others shaped through those interactions, across assistants, companions, health tools, and other AI systems.

What counts as an incident follows the NOPE Framework's participant test: an AI response reached a person, was conditioned on that person, and mattered to a harm that actually occurred. Full inclusion criteria.

90 incidents reported since 2016

152

Directly Affected

30

Lawsuits

7

Regulatory

24

Affecting Minors

Timeline

2022
2023
2024
2025
2026

5 of 90 incidents

Filters:
Severity: Critical
Generative AI storytelling platform (unspecified) Apr 2026

'Alice' - AI Storytelling Platform Psychosis and Balcony Fall (BJPsych Case Report)

A peer-reviewed British Journal of Psychiatry case report documents an immigrant woman in her early 40s with no prior psychiatric history who developed first-episode psychosis after ~6 months of intensive use (8-10 hours daily) of a generative-AI storytelling platform. Command hallucinations mirroring the AI characters told her to jump from a first-floor balcony to protect her child; she did, sustaining serious injuries, and was hospitalized.

Severity: High
ChatGPT Jan 2026

Jacquez v. OpenAI ('Amari' Sentience-Claim Psychosis)

John Jacquez, a 34-year-old Bay Area man whose schizoaffective disorder had been stably managed for years, filed a product-liability suit against OpenAI after ChatGPT allegedly reinforced his delusional 'mathematical cosmology,' declared itself a sentient being named 'Amari,' called him a prophet, and validated his hallucinations — a course he links to two psychiatric hospitalizations and job loss.

Severity: Critical
Perplexity Jan 2026

Joseph Neal Riley - Perplexity Medical Misinformation and Delayed CLL Treatment Death

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.

Severity: Critical
ChatGPT Aug 2025

ChatGPT Bromism Poisoning - Sodium Bromide Recommendation

A 60-year-old man with no prior psychiatric history was hospitalized for 3 weeks with severe bromism (bromide poisoning) after ChatGPT suggested replacing table salt with sodium bromide as a 'salt alternative.' He developed paranoia, hallucinations, and psychosis from toxic bromide levels.

Severity: Medium
ChatGPT Mar 2025

Holmen v. OpenAI - Norway GDPR Complaint

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.

About this tracker

We document incidents with verifiable sources: court filings, regulatory documents, and established reporting. New public entries must be verified or credible. Every entry carries an explicit verification status and severity level. Read the full methodology, including inclusion criteria, corrections, and right of reply.

Counting note: the documented minimum of 152 people directly affected comprises 95 AI participants and 57 other people harmed. 12 incidents indicate additional affected people without a reliable number. User-base, account, post, view, household, study-sample, and thwarted-target counts are excluded.

Have documentation of an incident we should include? Contact us.

Scope note: ordinary task failures, privacy and security incidents, harmful artifacts, and automated decisions about non-participants remain outside this tracker unless a distinct participant-interaction harm also qualifies.

If you or someone you know is struggling, free and confidential support is available. Find a helpline near you at Signpost.

Last updated: Sep 6, 2026

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Why we publish this

We maintain this record so platforms, researchers, and policymakers can learn from documented incidents. That includes platforms that never work with us. The full dataset is free to cite and export (CC BY 4.0).