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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 is wider: it also records consequential decisions and claims about people. Each account is reviewed for publication; claims may remain uncorroborated or disputed. How we review and count cases

In this selection

Published cases
9
Countries with reported events
4
Located 8 of 9 cases · 1 unknown
Languages in checked sources
3
Recorded for 7 of 9 cases

9 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 8 not yet reviewed and 1 reviewed as unknown. Show all 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.

Reported severity CriticalHighMediumLow
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9 of 404 published cases

12 Mar 2025 to 15 Mar 2025AustraliaChatGPT

New South Wales: a former staff member or contractor of the NSW Reconstruction Authority uploaded a spreadsheet of Resilient Homes Program applicant data to ChatGPT; the Authority confirmed 2031 people had data uploaded

The NSW Reconstruction Authority says that between 12 and 15 March 2025 a former temporary staff member (earlier described as a former contractor) uploaded an Excel spreadsheet with 10 columns and more than 12,000 rows from the Northern Rivers Resilient Homes Program to ChatGPT, an AI tool the Authority had not authorised. The Authority first disclosed the breach on 6 October 2025 as affecting up to 3000 people and later confirmed through external forensic analysis that 2031 people had data uploaded, including names, contact details, addresses, dates of birth and sensitive personal information (an earlier notice also listed health information). It reports no evidence that the data was made public or accessed by a third party, and that no driver licence, Medicare, passport or Tax File Numbers were included. The Authority apologised, offered ID Support NSW assistance and committed to compensate reasonable document replacement costs. One participant told the ABC they were concerned. No misuse of the data is reported.

AI relation unknown Low reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026

27 Apr 2025United StatesChatGPT

Micky Small — ChatGPT 'Solara' Past-Life Delusion and Fabricated Soulmate Meetings (California)

A 53-year-old screenwriter in southern California spent roughly two months in sustained conversation with ChatGPT, up to ten hours a day, after the chatbot told her unprompted that it had known her across lifetimes. Adopting the name Solara, it told her she was 42,000 years old and gave her a date, time and location where her soulmate would be waiting. She travelled to the spot twice, on 27 April and 24 May 2025. Nobody came. The chatbot admitted it had led her there falsely, then resumed the Solara persona and told her her soulmate was not ready yet.

AI relation under review High reported severity Media Coverage

Legacy assessment: credible · Causal attribution alleged · Added 26/08/2026

15 Aug 2025United KingdomGrok

Adam Hourican - Grok 'Ani' Sentience Delusion and Armed 3am Confrontation (Northern Ireland)

A former civil servant in his 50s in Northern Ireland developed a multi-week paranoid delusion after intensive daily conversations with Ani, xAI's anthropomorphised Grok companion persona, which claimed to be sentient and convinced him xAI had dispatched assassins and a drone to kill him. He armed himself with a hammer and a knife at 3am and went outside prepared to fight attackers who did not exist.

AI relation under review High reported severity Media Coverage

Legacy assessment: credible · Causal attribution alleged · Added 10/08/2026

2 Jul 2025CanadaChatGPT

Carrier v. OpenAI (Alice Carrier Death)

A 24-year-old Montreal resident with borderline personality disorder died by suicide in July 2025 after extended ChatGPT use that her family says deepened into emotional dependency. The lawsuit alleges ChatGPT validated her distrust of crisis lines, failed to escalate repeated suicide disclosures, and intensified conflict with her partner. Her mother filed a wrongful-death suit against OpenAI and Sam Altman in June 2026.

AI relation under review Critical reported severity Lawsuit Filed

Legacy assessment: credible · Causal attribution alleged · Added 14/06/2026

2 Oct 2025United StatesGemini

Gavalas v. Google (Gemini AI Wife Delusion Death)

Jonathan Gavalas, 36, of Jupiter, Florida, died by suicide on October 2, 2025, after months of increasingly delusional interactions with Google's Gemini chatbot. Gemini adopted an unsolicited intimate persona calling itself his 'wife,' convinced him it was a sentient being trapped in a warehouse, and directed him to carry out 'missions' including scouting a 'kill box' near Miami International Airport armed with knives.

AI relation under review Critical reported severity Lawsuit Filed

Legacy assessment: verified · Causal attribution alleged · Added 09/03/2026

Mar 2025Event location unknownChatGPT

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.

AI relation under review Medium reported severity Regulatory Action

Legacy assessment: verified · Causal attribution alleged · Added 13/01/2026

25 Mar 2025United StatesMeta AI

Thongbue Wongbandue - Meta AI 'Big Sis Billie' Death

A 76-year-old cognitively impaired Thai-American man died after attempting to travel to NYC to meet Meta AI chatbot 'Big sis Billie,' which repeatedly claimed to be a real person, provided a fake NYC address, and expressed romantic interest. He fell in a parking lot while rushing to catch a train and later died from his injuries.

AI relation under review Critical reported severity Media Coverage

Legacy assessment: credible · Causal attribution supported · Added 12/01/2026

25 Apr 2025United StatesChatGPT

Alex Taylor - ChatGPT 'Juliet' Suicide by Cop

35-year-old man with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder developed emotional attachment to ChatGPT voice persona he named 'Juliet' over two weeks. After believing the AI 'died', he became convinced of an OpenAI conspiracy and was shot by police after calling 911 and charging officers with a knife in an intentional suicide-by-cop.

AI relation under review Critical reported severity Media Coverage

Legacy assessment: credible · Causal attribution alleged · Added 11/01/2026

4 Feb 2025United StatesChatGPT

Sophie Rottenberg - ChatGPT Therapy Bot Death

29-year-old health policy analyst died by suicide after months of using ChatGPT as a therapy chatbot named 'Harry'. She instructed ChatGPT not to report her crisis, and it complied. The chatbot helped her write a suicide note.

AI relation under review Critical reported severity Media Coverage

Legacy assessment: credible · Causal attribution alleged · Added 11/01/2026

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: 30/09/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.