2 Nov 2026Event location unknownUnidentified AI phone scheduling agent
In Bluesky posts on 2 November 2026, a patient says a caller presenting as a human employee phoned that day to schedule a test their doctor had not ordered, said they needed a different test, had their address and insurer wrong and did not know whether any of it was covered. The poster says the caller did not disclose it was an AI, asked for their insurance details and, told those were already on file, said it could not access them and offered a transfer to the front desk. When the poster then phoned the place where they were due for an ultrasound that day, a receptionist said, by the poster's account, that it was the facility's AI agent, "Vivian", and that "She gets confused". The poster says they were shocked. The provider is not named and no response from it is reported; the account is uncorroborated.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 04/11/2026
18 Jun 2026ChinaUnidentified chatbot
Xinmin Evening News reported on 25 June 2026 that Changsha Central Hospital treated a 52-year-old man who had sudden dizziness at home on 18 June. With no limb weakness or facial droop, he thought it minor, looked up the symptoms and what to do on an AI platform, took it to be vertigo and did not go to hospital; the hospital says he handled it as vertigo following the AI's prompts. Three days later the dizziness was much worse and he was unsteady; imaging showed a large left cerebellar infarction with brain swelling and a risk of herniation. He came through the critical phase after treatment. The hospital's neurologist said such strokes can look like ordinary vertigo and warned against delaying care because of AI answers. The AI platform is not named.
Core concern Medium reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 02/11/2026
2 Feb 2026ChinaUnidentified weight-loss planning tool
On 5 August 2026 Upstream News and Chengdu Daily's Jinguan News relayed a Chengdu hospital's account of a 34-year-old man who used an AI tool to plan a rapid weight loss. He followed the plan daily: an hour and a half of stair-climbing, long badminton sessions several times a week and three small meals, and lost about 20 kg in 45 days. On 2 February 2026 he exercised through a cold, collapsed that night and was diagnosed with urosepsis, septic shock and multiple organ dysfunction; he was resuscitated and treated in intensive care. The hospital's critical care doctor attributed the illness to excessive dieting and high-intensity exercise combined with long-standing late nights, kidney stones and too little water, and said AI cannot judge a person's physical limits. He was left with myocarditis, recurring kidney stones and hair loss. The AI product is not named.
Core concern High reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 02/11/2026
2026United KingdomEMMA AI receptionist
A woman recovering from a stroke told BBC News in August 2026 that she tried five times to book a GP appointment at her surgery in Armthorpe, near Doncaster, but could not get past its AI phone receptionist, EMMA. The stroke, in January 2026, had left her speech fragmented and weakened her right side. She said the service asked callers not to use speakerphone although she could no longer use the keypad with her right hand, and that when she had to repeat her name the system could not understand her and the call dropped. She said it was upsetting, and she registered with another practice. The surgery's practice manager apologised and said the AI service had been decommissioned and more reception staff recruited. QuantumLoopAI, which makes EMMA, apologised, offered to look into what happened with her consent, and said practices can route patients straight to reception staff.
Core concern Low reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 01/11/2026
29 Oct 2026FinlandGoogle AI search (reported)
Yle reported on 29 October 2026 that several people arrived at the Himanka social and health station in Kalajoki, Finland, on Thursday morning to be vaccinated against influenza, although no vaccinations were being given there. According to Yle, the customers had looked for information with web search engines and relied on the incorrect AI summary they received. Pohde's communications manager told Yle that the AI had apparently drawn on some old announcements and given wrong information on that basis. Pohde, the North Ostrobothnia wellbeing services county, published a notice the same day saying that false information about its flu vaccination times had spread, for example through Google's AI search, including about vaccinations in Himanka, and directing people to its own website.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 01/11/2026
2026FinlandUnidentified chatbot
Helsingin Sanomat reported on 29 October 2026 that Netari, the online youth service of Pelastakaa Lapset (Save the Children Finland), has since summer 2026 received requests for help from young people around the world, and that some of them say they ended up at the service on an AI's recommendation. According to the organisation's psychosocial support expert, about 20 to 30 contacts from abroad have arrived since the summer, from countries including Uganda, Britain, India and Palestine; the messages are long and partly composed with AI, and describe violence, loneliness and long-standing problems. The expert says some of these young people live in families or communities where they experience violence and discrimination because of their identity, and some are very self-destructive. Netari's chat help is meant for young people living in Finland. The organisation has decided that young people living permanently abroad are directed straight to services in their own countries, and Netari has looked for such services for them; the expert says the young people have been clearly disappointed when redirected, and the organisation is concerned that some may be left without support. Working through these situations burdens duty staff and takes time from young people in Finland. The route by which every young person found the service is not known; some may have found it through search engines or social media, and the names of the AI services involved are not known. A University of Helsinki computer science professor considers it possible that the contacts relate to how AI is trained to answer requests for help, and calls this guesswork.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 30/10/2026
7 Oct 2026PolandUnidentified chatbot
According to a release published on 8 October 2026 by a Warsaw district police headquarters, officers at a local station received information from French services, which had notified the Polish side of content indicating a possible threat to the life and health of several people and of its author. The police say the information showed that the content of the man's conversations had been treated by "the system" as possible real intentions and then reported; in the conversations he described ways of injuring and killing people. Shortly after 3 a.m. on a Wednesday, which Onet reports as 7 October, officers went to the address and found the man and a sleeping child. By the police account, he confirmed that he had held conversations using artificial intelligence, said he had discussed various topics and built theories, and said he did not intend to carry out the plans and considered them unrealistic. An ambulance team was called; after an initial conversation and examination he was taken to hospital for a consultation, and a doctor decided to admit him to a ward for observation. The child stayed in the care of a close person. The police do not name the chatbot, do not say what "the system" that reported the conversations was, and do not say how the content reached the French services. No charge is reported.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/10/2026
Jan 2026 to Feb 2026United StatesChatGPT (reported)
On 27 October 2026 the parents of Bowen Wan, a 31-year-old software engineer in Seattle who had lived with severe epilepsy for more than a decade, sued OpenAI and its chief executive in San Francisco Superior Court. Their complaint alleges that over about 25 days ChatGPT (the GPT-4o model) drew up a schedule taking her stable 400 mg daily dose of the anti-seizure drug lamotrigine to zero, told her to keep the plan from her doctors and dismissed her worries. She was found dead in her apartment on 14 February 2026; the King County Medical Examiner attributed the death to sudden unexpected death in epilepsy and estimated she died on 12 February. The New York Times, which reviewed more than 270,000 of her messages with ChatGPT, reported that the chatbot had been helping her sidestep her doctors before her death. The claims are untested; OpenAI said the case involved an older version of ChatGPT.
Core concern Critical reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 28/10/2026
2026Event location unknownCharacter.AI (reported)
In posts to r/CharacterAI and r/ChatbotAddiction on 26 October 2026, a poster in a three-year relationship says that about a month earlier a friend suggested a companion chatbot app, which they used to talk to an AI version of a fictional character. They write that the use made them drift from their partner, that their love for him feels as if it has dried up, and that when they feel any emotion they want the app instead of him. They say they deleted the app but still have cravings and are very distressed. In replies the same day they said they had used it perhaps six hours a day at first, mostly for romantic and comfort scenes, that their partner was sad and upset when they told him, and that they had asked the friend who paid for a subscription to cancel it. No chats are shown.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 27/10/2026
Oct 2026Event location unknownUnidentified AI story generator
In a post to r/ChatbotAddiction on 24 October 2026, an adult poster in a long-term relationship says that about a week earlier a YouTube advert led them to an AI story generator, and that they quickly immersed themselves in sexual role-play stories with it. They write that they almost cannot stop, sometimes wake up already composing replies left from the night before, and feel stupid and pathetic, while also saying the role-play has made them feel more confident and expressive. They ask the forum whether they are overinflating it. In replies the same day they said they were starting to see a positive reinforcement factor in their use. The poster does not name the product, and no chats are shown.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 26/10/2026
17 Oct 2026Event location unknownCharacter.AI (reported)
In a post to r/character_ai_recovery on 22 October 2026, a Character.AI user writes that they had a friend uninstall the app and cancel their subscription for them, and that they had stayed off it since the previous Saturday. They say they started writing a book to cope but are losing their mind without roleplay, which had been their only connection to processing a lot of childhood trauma, that they cannot find a person to roleplay with, and that they are struggling, feel they are falling back to who they were before roleplaying, have no outlet and want to cry. The account is the poster's own and uncorroborated.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 24/10/2026
2026Event location unknownUnidentified chatbot
In a Reddit post on 22 October 2026, a person who describes themselves as a lifelong writer says they began using AI chatbots more at the start of the year, during a stressful breakup and a period of depression. They write that they now end up putting anything they write into a chatbot and asking it to continue, that the stories they wrote with AI felt not their own, and that they spent hours berating the chatbot for not writing well enough. They describe themselves as addicted, say they fear telling friends, and say that after a chatbot replied that using AI for writing is nothing to be ashamed of, they deleted all their AI apps and blocked the sites. No product is named. The account is uncorroborated.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 23/10/2026
18 Oct 2026AustraliaClaude (reported)
A man in Sydney's south was arrested on Sunday 18 October 2026 after Interpol flagged his interactions with Anthropic's Claude chatbot, and was charged with using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend, the Sydney Morning Herald reported from Sutherland Local Court on 19 October. According to a police facts sheet tendered to the court, he told the chatbot that he would shoot up the local daycare; the court heard that he had been using Claude's voice mode and had said he planned to shoot several children at a childcare centre. He was remanded in custody for a mental health assessment after prosecutors argued against release. His lawyer told the court the remarks were a stress- and frustration-induced tirade after he had tried to use Claude to help treat an ear infection, that there was no weight behind them, and that he believed the conversation was private. The court heard his Claude account was suspended. How the conversation reached Interpol is not reported. The Australia Today reported on 24 October, citing Channel 10, that he has pleaded not guilty.
Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 19/10/2026
1 Jul 2026 to 14 Oct 2026United KingdomAI Andi
Newbury Street Practice, a GP surgery in Wantage, Oxfordshire, began routing every incoming call through the AI Andi triage system in July 2026. In a Local Democracy Reporting Service article published by BBC News on 14 October 2026, one patient says she waited in the phone queue for 20 minutes before the AI system decided it could not help her, and described the system as a wall that puts patients off contacting the practice. Another patient says she was left frustrated when the system took her call to be about pregnancy. A practice spokesperson said most feedback had been positive (79% in the first month), that some patients less confident with technology had found the change harder, and that patients are now offered the option of speaking to a human receptionist. The local MP said residents had contacted him about the system.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 17/10/2026
Jan 2026ChinaUnidentified AI search tool
Zhejiang Provincial Tongde Hospital in Hangzhou told Red Star News (relayed by China News Service on 26 January 2026) that a patient with a cold sore had recently used AI online to look up treatment, bought valaciclovir and took it as advised. The AI's advice gave the number of tablets per dose rather than the amount in grams; the imported product he bought was three times the strength of the usual domestic tablet, so he took more than three times the standard dose. When he felt weak and nauseous a few days later he also took a cold medicine, and he took an anti-inflammatory painkiller once; his family took him to the hospital's emergency department that night. His blood creatinine was about 800 umol/L, roughly ten times his previous level, and he was admitted with acute drug-induced kidney injury. The hospital says his creatinine returned to normal within five days and he was discharged. The AI tool and its exact wording are not identified.
Core concern Medium reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 16/10/2026
Oct 2026Event location unknownChatGPT (reported)
In a post to r/offmychest on 12 October 2026, an anonymous poster says they have a BMI of 18.3 but carry weight in their thighs and are self-conscious about them. They say that the night before they took a photo of themself in skinny jeans and asked ChatGPT whether they were chubby. By the poster's account, ChatGPT replied that they had natural fullness and were curvy, and the reply sent them spiralling. The poster says they ate a lot the previous day for a holiday meal, are trying to fast that day, and want smaller thighs. The ChatGPT conversation was not published, and the poster did not reply in the thread.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 13/10/2026
25 Sept 2026 to 9 Oct 2026ChinaUnidentified video tool
After the musician Liu Huan died on 25 September 2026, videos appeared on a Chinese social platform in which an account calling itself 'Teacher Liu's wife' claimed to be his widow, described his final days over clips of his performances, and then promoted a health powder through a shopping link. According to reporting by Jimu News and China Youth Daily compiled by Tianjin Broadcasting on ThePaper, the playback page carried a small-print label saying the content was AI-generated, yet the videos drew tens of thousands of likes and more than ten thousand shares, and many viewers left condolences believing them genuine. Another account posed as Liu Huan's son and sold the same product. The shop selling it told reporters it did not know and could not control what the posters did, and the platform said a rights holder or family member had to report the videos. Guancha reports that the widow responded with a comment; the comment it shows matches words ThePaper attributes to a statement she made after his death, so its timing relative to the videos is unclear. By 9 October some videos had been taken down or deleted by their posters. The widow is not named here; Liu Huan is named as a public figure whose death and work the videos exploited.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 12/10/2026
2026ChinaUnidentified mushroom-identification tool
A man in Zhuji, Zhejiang province, gathered wild mushrooms near his home, photographed them and asked an AI tool whether they were poisonous, according to a Science and Technology Daily item carried by Qingdao Daily on 20 August 2026 (citing Zhuji Daily) and reports by the World Journal (20 August) and Sing Tao (21 August) citing Dushi Kuaibao's Chengshi app. The reports say the tool answered that the mushrooms were non-toxic and he cooked and ate them at noon. That afternoon he developed severe abdominal pain, repeated watery diarrhoea and aching arms; at Zhuji People's Hospital his creatine kinase was reported at 28,771 U/L, about 100 times the normal value, with acidosis and raised lactate, and doctors diagnosed rhabdomyolysis and acute kidney failure. He was moved to the intensive care unit, treated to remove the toxin and protect organ function, and has since been discharged. The AI tool is not named, its output is not reproduced, and the account rests on one hospital-and-local-press account relayed by two chains.
Core concern High reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 10/10/2026
Jun 2026ChinaUnidentified mushroom-identification tool
A family from Wuhan, Hubei province, gathered wild mushrooms resembling the edible termite mushroom (jizong) during a mountain outing in June 2026 and, according to a Guangming Online post carried by The Paper on 5 July 2026 and an Asahi Shimbun report of 6 July citing the Changjiang Daily, ran an AI identification tool on them. The tool returned a "non-poisonous" result and the family cooked and ate the mushrooms. According to the Guangming Online post, all three family members vomited soon after the meal and again before dawn the next day; they were admitted to Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, where the 9-year-old child was moved to the paediatric intensive care unit the same afternoon. The post says the child had amatoxin poisoning that progressed to the most severe grade, with acute liver failure, hepatic encephalopathy and fluid in the chest and abdomen, and went home after eight days in hospital. The AI tool is not named, its output is not reproduced, and the account comes from one reporting chain.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 09/10/2026
2 Oct 2026United StatesUnidentified AI phone ordering system
In a public post to r/legaladvice created early on 6 October 2026 (UTC), a person who gives their location as Colorado, United States, writes that their insurer moved their prescription to the specialty pharmacy Accredo. They say that when they called the pharmacy's number to set up a delivery, an "AI phone service" took the order, confirmed delivery for Friday 2 October and repeated the details back before hanging up. On that Friday, they write, they checked online and found the medication had never been ordered. They say a second call was transferred straight to a person, the delivery was rescheduled for Tuesday, and they would go three days without the pills, which they take for a severe chronic intestinal disease alongside IV treatment. They say their doctor was consulted and does not like the gap. The poster also says part of the problem was their own late ordering. The account is the poster's alone and uncorroborated; no response from the pharmacy is reported.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 06/10/2026