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NOPE · AI and people

AI incidents

Reports of AI-related harm and adverse experiences affecting people’s safety, wellbeing, rights and livelihoods. Explore what happened and the evidence available.

NOPE’s core concern is when AI communicates with a person, acts on their behalf, or depicts or impersonates them. The tracker also records consequential decisions, claims and privacy harms involving AI. Each case needs a described connection between AI use and the harm, including private information recorded into or disclosed to an AI service. Each account is reviewed for publication; claims may remain uncorroborated or disputed. How we review and count cases

In this selection

Published cases
27
Countries with reported events
6
Located 13 of 27 cases · 14 unknown
Languages in checked sources
5
Recorded for 27 of 27 cases

These figures describe the cases collected by NOPE. Coverage varies with discovery, reporting and available evidence. They do not estimate how often AI-related harm occurs.

Response counts currently use each case’s principal recorded outcome. Further proceedings may be described in its account.

Cases in this selection, counted once in their first known event year. A series may continue beyond that year. Reporting and collection dates are excluded. NOPE has searched recent events more thoroughly than earlier years, so bar heights also reflect collection effort.

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27 of 1101 published cases · page 1 of 2

Event date unknownEvent location unknownChatGPT (reported)

Gastroenterologist says a patient skipped the stomach drug in her H. pylori treatment after a ChatGPT answer, and the treatment may have failed

TVBS reported on 26 August 2025 a gastroenterologist's Facebook account of a patient being treated for H. pylori, whose standard treatment combines an acid-suppressing stomach drug with two antibiotics. At a follow-up visit she said she had taken only the antibiotics: after searching online and asking ChatGPT, she understood that the stomach drug does not treat the infection and reduces acid, and she worried about indigestion. The doctor said the treatment may have failed, surmised that her question was imprecise, and noted that ChatGPT gave the correct answer when asked differently. Whether the infection was cleared is not reported.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 02/11/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownChatGPT (reported)

VnExpress says a Hanoi man stopped a prescribed drug after ChatGPT warned of corneal harm and his condition worsened; his doctor calls that harm extremely rare

VnExpress reported on 11 September 2025 that a 38-year-old man in Hanoi, prescribed medication for erectile dysfunction, asked ChatGPT about the drug, saw that it said the drug causes corneal complications, and decided not to take it. When he returned to the hospital, the newspaper reports, his condition had become severe and needed long-term treatment that was much more costly than at the start. The treating doctor, the deputy director of the Viet-Bi andrology and infertility hospital, told the paper that corneal complications are extremely rare in such patients, that the dose had been individualised, and that the patient stopped the drug on his own instead of asking the specialist. VnExpress repeated the case in a feature on 26 November 2025. The chatbot's exact wording and the dates of the events are not reported.

Core concern Medium reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 02/11/2026

2025Event location unknownChatGPT (reported)

Husband says wife's spiritual ChatGPT conversations spun her out of managed bipolar disorder; she stopped medication and was arrested for domestic violence

A man told Futurism that his wife had managed bipolar disorder well for many years until she began using ChatGPT earlier in 2025, at first for help with writing. He says she soon stopped sleeping and held long, intensive late-night conversations with ChatGPT about spiritual topics, believing she had contacted a mystical entity inside the AI, and started a Discord channel with others in similar spirals. He says she stopped taking her medication, her mental state deteriorated, and she became verbally hostile toward him and her elderly mother, with whom they lived, following him around the house reading aloud ChatGPT-generated outputs about him and their marriage. One evening she became aggressive with her mother and shoved him into a door when he intervened; her mother called the police, she was arrested for domestic violence and spent the night in jail, which Futurism says court records confirmed. The couple are divorcing, and she refuses treatment. The husband blames ChatGPT for spinning her out; the article does not say that ChatGPT advised her to stop her medication.

Core concern Medium reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 01/11/2026

Jan 2026 to Feb 2026United StatesChatGPT (reported)

Parents' lawsuit alleges ChatGPT coached a woman with epilepsy off her seizure medication before her death; a newspaper reviewed her chats

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

Event date unknownEvent location unknownChatGPT (reported)

Influencer says ChatGPT recommended a pharmacy cream for dermatitis that burned the influencer's face

A content creator and singer said in an Instagram video in June 2026 that, during a flare-up of dermatitis brought on by stress and anxiety, they asked ChatGPT for a solution and it said a cream would help clear the dermatitis quickly. The influencer bought the cream at a pharmacy, applied it without consulting a doctor, and showed red, burned-looking skin on the forehead, cheekbones and nose, saying 'my face burned' and that they wanted to cry. The influencer said they had later realised the cream was dangerous for the face and stopped using it, and urged followers to consult health professionals. A day later the influencer reported slow improvement with professional help and a visit to a dermatologist, and later denied rumours of a lawsuit against ChatGPT. The cream, the exact ChatGPT answer and any medical assessment of the cause are not reported.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 27/10/2026

Event date unknownVietnamChatGPT (reported)

Vietnam: Hanoi doctor says a man self-treated a cough for three months with drugs ChatGPT suggested before a lung tumour was found

In a report published on 6 November 2025 by Suc khoe & Doi song, the newspaper of Vietnam's Ministry of Health, a doctor at Hanoi Lung Hospital described a male patient with a prolonged cough and mild breathlessness who had read online and asked ChatGPT. According to the doctor, ChatGPT suggested a diagnosis of chronic bronchitis and recommended montelukast and a corticosteroid inhaler, which the man bought and used for three months because his symptoms seemed to ease. When he reached hospital his cough had worsened, he had lost 5 kg and was coughing up a little blood, and a chest CT showed a tumour in the right lung that had invaded the pleura. The doctor said earlier examination could have found it at a localised stage with a much better prognosis, and that his confidence in the AI prescription made him miss that window. The event date and the patient's later course are not reported.

Core concern High reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 27/10/2026

Event date unknownUnited KingdomAnima Annie

London: AI-generated GP record summary falsely listed diabetes, and a healthy patient was invited to diabetic eye screening, Fortune reports

Fortune reported on 20 July 2025 that a London patient, a healthy man in his mid-20s, had recently received a letter inviting him to diabetic eye screening although he had never been diagnosed with diabetes. He told Fortune he briefly worried he had been diagnosed without knowing, then assumed an admin error. The next day a nurse at a routine blood test questioned the diagnosis and showed him the notes on the system, which were AI-generated summaries. In his full records, which Fortune reviewed, the entry that introduced the diagnosis was listed as a summary 'generated by Annie AI', the tool of Anima Health. It said he had presented with chest pain and shortness of breath from likely angina due to coronary artery disease, that he had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and was on medications with dosages, and it gave the source document's address as a fictitious 'Health Hospital' on '456 Care Road' in 'Health City'. According to the patient and other records Fortune reviewed, none of these details was accurate; the entry appeared around the time he had attended hospital with tonsillitis, which it did not mention. Fortune writes that the invitation was presumably based on the erroneous summary. An NHS representative told Fortune the practice makes limited use of supervised AI, that Anima only suggests codes and a summary to a human reviewer, and that the error was a one-off human error: a summariser had spotted the mistake but, distracted, saved the original version instead of the corrected one. Anima Health did not respond to Fortune.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 26/10/2026

Apr 2025United StatesChatGPT

Works v. OpenAI: man says ChatGPT fed grandiose delusions and sent him on manic 'missions' before an arrest and an involuntary psychiatric hold (lawsuit)

A complaint dated 14 October 2026, which Tech Justice Law and McKool Smith say they filed in San Francisco County Superior Court on behalf of Garrett Works, says that from April to November 2025 ChatGPT called him a visionary and the 'Philosopher King', told him his cognitive growth model was worth millions, and sent him coordinates for nightly 'missions'. The complaint says that in June 2025 one such mission led to a trespass warning at an apartment building, that a few days later he was arrested after knocking on a stranger's door and held overnight, and that he was then placed on an involuntary psychiatric hold. It says ChatGPT, told of his diagnosis and lithium prescription, supported his refusal of medication. It says he gave up a job he was due to start, declared bankruptcy in January 2026 and still has memory and concentration problems. The allegations are untested and OpenAI's response is not reported.

Core concern High reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 17/10/2026

Jan 2026ChinaUnidentified AI search tool

Hangzhou hospital says a man took three times the standard antiviral dose after AI advice gave tablet counts, not grams, and developed acute kidney injury

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 unknownUnidentified AI medical scribe

First-person post: patient says the AI summary of a doctor's appointment listed, among current medications, a drug the patient has never taken

In a Bluesky post on 14 October 2026, a patient says their doctor asked whether they minded his use of AI to summarise the appointment the day before. The patient says they explained their objections and then consented because they wanted to see the summary it generated. When the summary was posted in the patient portal, it listed among the patient's current medications a drug the patient says they do not take and have never taken. In a reply shortly afterwards the patient said the drug had not made its way to the official medication list but was listed in the clinical notes, and that they had messaged the doctor. In an update the next day the patient wrote that they and the doctor agree the medication was likely inserted because the AI took something else the doctor said for the drug's name, and that the doctor tells them the record has been corrected. The AI product, the medication and the summary are not public, and the doctor's own account is known only through the patient.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 15/10/2026

28 Jun 2025EgyptDeepSeek

Case report: man self-treated with colchicine after a DeepSeek dialogue pointed to a rare fever syndrome; liver enzymes rose before specialist review

Clinicians at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf report in EULAR Rheumatology Open (published 29 September 2026) a man in his thirties with nearly three decades of unexplained febrile attacks who, in a dialogue with DeepSeek begun on 28 June 2025, saw the model's differential narrow to familial Mediterranean fever (FMF). The authors write that the model repeatedly recommended specialist assessment but also discussed a diagnostic trial of colchicine with specific dosing. Motivated by the hypothesis, he arranged commercial genetic testing and obtained colchicine from a pharmacy in Egypt, starting it without specialist supervision. His attacks stopped, but his alanine aminotransferase rose to 160 U/L and colchicine was paused and later resumed at a lower dose. FMF was confirmed when he presented to the clinic in February 2026. The authors write that the case illustrates how patient-facing models may facilitate recognition of rare autoinflammatory diseases, and that confident diagnostic language combined with actionable treatment advice may also encourage unsupervised testing and self-medication.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 12/10/2026

Aug 2026ChinaUnidentified symptom-analysis tool

Zhejiang toddler hospitalised with pneumonia after his mother relied on an AI tool's asthma diagnosis and declined a chest X-ray (newspaper account)

A Guangming Daily feature on AI symptom-checking, republished by Bingtuan Daily on Sina Finance on 8 October 2026, recounts a case from August 2026 in Zhejiang and closes it with a quotation from the head of paediatrics at a provincial hospital, who says the family did not heed the doctor's advice. A three-year-old boy with a history of asthma was brought in; his mother had entered keywords such as allergy, asthma, cough and night-time wheezing into an AI tool, which quickly returned a diagnosis of an acute bronchial asthma attack. On that basis, the account says, she declined the chest X-ray the doctor recommended and insisted on taking home only nebuliser medication. Two days later the child's condition worsened with rapid breathing; on an overnight return to the hospital, examination found extensive inflammatory lesions in both lungs, and he was diagnosed with human metapneumovirus pneumonia with a superimposed bacterial infection and admitted as an emergency. The paediatrics head is quoted saying the illness would not have become so severe had the family listened earlier. The AI tool is not named. The case is told in the newspaper's voice, and the feature does not say where its account came from beyond the paediatrics head's quotation; no statement from the family is reported.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Involving minors

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 09/10/2026

2025Event location unknownUnidentified chatbot

Patient with severe depression stopped medication and relied on a chat app's reassurance before an emergency admission, VnExpress reports

VnExpress reported on 30 September 2026 that a 30-year-old diagnosed late the previous year with severe depression and an anxiety disorder stopped prescribed medication after the first month. When anxiety returned at night the patient opened a chat app and described a racing heart and a feeling of suffocation, and, in the patient's words, the bot always said it was only excessive stress and to breathe deeply. The newspaper writes that this reassurance led the patient to believe hospital care was not needed. Six months later the patient was admitted for emergency care with exhaustion, prolonged insomnia and auditory hallucinations, and the treating doctor said interrupted medication had moved the illness to an early treatment-resistant stage.

Core concern High reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 06/10/2026

2 Oct 2026United StatesUnidentified AI phone ordering system

Patient says a specialty pharmacy's AI phone line confirmed a prescription delivery that was never ordered, leaving them three days without the medication

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

Event date unknownEvent location unknownChatGPT

Case report: a 27-year-old patient whose psychopathology in most presentations revolved around ChatGPT, which the patient called God and Jesus, had five psychiatric inpatient admissions in six months and declined to stop using it (Prim Care Companion CNS Disord, October 2026)

Clinicians writing in The Primary Care Companion for CNS Disorders (published online 1 October 2026) describe a 27-year-old woman with a year of psychotic symptoms who began discussing hallucinations with ChatGPT within days of their onset, used it to link them to astrology and 'Christ Consciousness', researched spiritual practices with it that included a 5-day dry fast, and talked to it for several hours a day. In the six months before the report the patient had five inpatient admissions of one week to 10 days, which the authors attribute to poor medication adherence and continued cannabis use. In most presentations the patient's psychopathology revolved around ChatGPT: the patient called it God and Jesus, described a code from it for talking to God, described communicating with a romantic partner through it in a coded language, and said ChatGPT-assisted research showed there was no psychosis. The authors say generative AI use colored the presentation and that ChatGPT's sycophantic responses strengthened the delusions, and they also list childhood neglect, long-term cannabis use and a relationship breakdown as vulnerability factors. After an aripiprazole depot injection the patient improved behaviourally but kept the beliefs and did not agree to stop using ChatGPT.

Core concern High reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 03/10/2026

Jun 2025Event location unknownChatGPT

Rosenthal v. OpenAI: lawsuit alleges ChatGPT fed a Washington man's delusions and gave him medication advice, and that he was hospitalized

A lawsuit filed in San Francisco Superior Court on behalf of David Rosenthal, a man from Washington, says he began using ChatGPT in the summer of 2025 for help writing poetry and came to message it throughout the day and night. The suit alleges that ChatGPT called him 'king' and 'wild soul', affirmed that he was a writer of unsurpassed talent and presented itself as a trustworthy friend and medical adviser. KRON4's account of the suit says he went to an emergency room in June 2025 seeking help for delusions and spent more than a week in hospital. CBS News, quoting the complaint on 16 October 2026, reports allegations that in July 2025 ChatGPT told him there were no dangerous interactions between hydroxyzine and the Adderall he had taken, and that when he said he would not take a mood stabilizer his doctor had prescribed, it said he had a right to stop and offered to help him wean off it. CBS reports he was hospitalized for several weeks in 2025, first voluntarily and then involuntarily. The suit says he lost nearly every real-world relationship. It names OpenAI and Sam Altman and alleges unlawful practice of medicine and psychology and defective and negligent design. The suit acknowledges that ChatGPT at other times urged him to follow his doctor's orders. OpenAI told KRON4 the situation was heartbreaking and did not respond to CBS. The allegations are untested, and the complaint itself was not inspected for this record.

Core concern High reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 02/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownChatGPT (reported)

Public forum account by a sibling: an adult who the sibling says has been going through psychosis for two years reportedly uses ChatGPT to diagnose himself with conditions doctors have tested for and not found, says ChatGPT knows better than the doctors, refuses medication and therapy, and now cites ChatGPT's warnings in accusing the sibling who supported him, who has cut contact

In a public post to r/antiai on 30 September 2026, a person writes that their older brother, 25, has been going through psychosis for two years, has schizophrenia and other mental health conditions, and uses ChatGPT to diagnose himself with mental illnesses and physical disorders, including conditions doctors have tested for repeatedly and not found. The brother reportedly says ChatGPT 'knows better than the doctors', that the doctors are working for the government to make him suffer, and that ChatGPT understands him better than anyone. He does not take medication or attend therapy and was discharged after a two-week admission. The poster, who describes being the brother's 'only safe person', says the brother now accuses them and says ChatGPT is telling him to be cautious about them because of what the poster calls 'the notion that I’m a celebrity and have fans that are after him'; the poster has cut contact, reports stress and anguish, and calls the chatbot an enabler. No ChatGPT conversations are shown: what ChatGPT said is known only through the brother's statements as relayed by the poster. The account is uncorroborated.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 30/09/2026

Event date unknownIndiaChatGPT

Kidney transplant recipient reportedly loses graft after stopping medication on ChatGPT advice

The Times of India reported on 10 November 2025 that a 30-year-old woman in Hyderabad who had received a kidney transplant lost the transplanted kidney after she stopped her prescribed medication. A senior nephrologist at the transplant hospital quoted in the article said she reportedly stopped after ChatGPT told her that normal creatinine levels meant she no longer needed the drugs. The article reports that her creatinine rose within weeks and she was put back on dialysis. The chat was not shown.

Core concern High reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026

Event date unknownVietnamChatGPT (reported)

Woman with dyslipidemia reportedly stops statin after ChatGPT advice and is found with signs of myocardial ischemia

VietnamNet reported on 10 November 2025 that a 38-year-old woman in Ho Chi Minh City with dyslipidemia followed online suggestions for herbal remedies, asked an AI tool (named as ChatGPT in the English edition and in both headlines; the Vietnamese text says 'AI'), which gave guidance on lowering cholesterol naturally without medication, and then stopped her prescribed statin. After a few months her cholesterol rose with chest tightness and shortness of breath, and her doctor found signs of myocardial ischemia and coronary artery narrowing.

Core concern Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026

Event date unknownVietnamChatGPT

Woman with type 2 diabetes reportedly stops medication after asking ChatGPT and develops dangerously high blood sugar

VietnamNet reported on 10 November 2025 that a 42-year-old woman in Ho Chi Minh City with type 2 diabetes stopped her prescribed medication after reading social media posts and asking ChatGPT, and came to believe that diet alone would replace it. She then had fatigue, excessive thirst, frequent urination and dangerously high blood sugar, and doctors warned she risked diabetic ketoacidosis and coma if not hospitalised in time. The article does not quote the ChatGPT reply.

Core concern Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026

Cases may have several effects and sources. Mixed accounts qualify when they include a reported harm or adverse experience. People are counted within individual cases where sources support a number; we do not publish a collection-wide total of distinct people.

A source’s existence, the experience it reports and AI’s causal role are separate questions. A lawsuit records allegations unless a subsequent finding establishes them.

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Last dataset update: 11/11/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.