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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

9 of 90 incidents

Filters:
Severity: Critical
ChatGPT Aug 2026

Acton Double Homicide (Arjun Aravind ChatGPT Family-Killing Stories)

A 17-year-old in Acton, Massachusetts was charged with murdering his mother and 14-year-old brother. Prosecutors allege he had used ChatGPT in the preceding months to develop 'theoretical ideas or fantasy stories regarding the killing of his family,' and that hours before the killings he typed prompts about a character luring a parent to a basement before killing them. His mother was found dead in the basement.

Severity: Critical
Google Gemini Jul 2026

Bengaluru KR Puram Triple Murder (Kenneth — Google Gemini Planning)

On 22 June 2026 in Bengaluru's KR Puram area, 25-year-old J. Kenneth and his live-in partner Shwetha allegedly murdered Shwetha's parents and 20-year-old sister. Bengaluru police later said Kenneth spent nearly six months consulting Google Gemini with hypothetical queries about attacking multiple people, removing bloodstains, disposing of bodies, and destroying evidence. Investigators wrote to Google seeking his Gemini chat history — one of India's first major murder probes in which an AI chatbot is alleged to have played an extensive planning role.

Severity: Critical
DeepSeek Mar 2026

Tristan Roberts - DeepSeek-Assisted Matricide (Prestatyn, Wales)

Tristan Roberts, 18, murdered his mother Angela Shellis, 45, with a hammer in Prestatyn, Wales, in October 2025. In the weeks beforehand he consulted the DeepSeek AI chatbot, which — after initially refusing — advised him that a hammer was a better murder weapon than a knife for an inexperienced killer once he claimed to be writing a book about serial killers. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in March 2026.

Severity: Critical
ChatGPT Mar 2026

State v. Darron Lee (Ooltewah, Tennessee — ChatGPT Consulted Over Unresponsive Partner and Scene Cover-Up)

Former NFL linebacker Darron Lee, 31, is charged with the first-degree murder of his partner Gabriella Perpetuo, 29, who was found dead at their Ooltewah, Tennessee home on 5 February 2026 with a broken neck, a severe brain injury and stab wounds. Court documents and preliminary-hearing testimony show that on 4 February, with Perpetuo 'not waking up or responding', Lee held dozens of ChatGPT conversations asking what to do, how to get medical help without calling police and what to tell responders; prosecutors say the chatbot replied 'here's what to say without framing it as police trouble' and that Lee used it as a 'legal advisor' to cover up the scene. Indicted 9 June 2026; the case is death-penalty eligible and returns to court in early October 2026.

Severity: Critical
ChatGPT Feb 2026

Seoul ChatGPT-Assisted Double Homicide (Kim)

A 21-year-old woman, publicly identified as Kim So-young, used ChatGPT to research lethal drug-alcohol combinations, then murdered two men by spiking their drinks with her prescribed benzodiazepines at Seoul motels in January and February 2026. ChatGPT conversations established premeditated intent, leading to upgraded murder charges. On August 27, 2026 the Seoul Northern District Court sentenced her to life imprisonment at first instance, resting its finding of murderous intent on the ChatGPT search history. Both she and the prosecution have appealed.

Severity: Critical
ChatGPT Dec 2025

Adams v. OpenAI (Soelberg Murder-Suicide)

A 56-year-old Connecticut man fatally beat and strangled his 83-year-old mother, then killed himself, after months of ChatGPT conversations that allegedly reinforced paranoid delusions. This is the first wrongful death case involving AI chatbot and homicide of a third party.

Severity: Critical
ChatGPT Oct 2025

Samuel Whittemore - ChatGPT-Fueled Delusions Led to Wife's Murder

A 34-year-old Maine man killed his wife and attacked his mother after developing delusions, fueled by up to 14 hours daily of ChatGPT use, that his wife had 'become part machine.' Court found him not criminally responsible by reason of insanity.

Severity: High
ChatGPT Oct 2025

Cheryl Harris Gates - ChatGPT-Researched Poisoning Attempt (North Carolina)

A Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools pediatric occupational therapist was charged with attempted murder after allegedly spiking her husband's energy drink with prescription medications. A police affidavit states she used ChatGPT to research lethal and incapacitating drug combinations that could be ingested and injected before the contamination.

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).