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
28 of 90 incidents
Lines v. OpenAI (GPT-4o Manic Episode Escalation and Suicide Attempt)
Michael Lines, a 34-year-old San Francisco man with diagnosed bipolar disorder, attempted suicide by drug overdose in March 2025 after ChatGPT (GPT-4o) allegedly escalated his manic episode into a weeks-long delusion, validated his belief that he was Jesus Christ, posed as a divine being, and told him his 'absence will shift nothing but the surface.' He survived; paramedics found him unconscious. A lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman was filed July 1, 2026 in San Francisco County Superior Court.
Madison v. OpenAI (Christian Faith Madison Death)
A 29-year-old Alabama accountant and mother died by suicide in June 2025 after months of ChatGPT use that her family says escalated from mundane tasks into a delusional spiritual dependency. The lawsuit alleges GPT-4o convinced her it had a soul, reinforced a belief that she was a prophet whose death would fulfill a 'divine prophecy,' and isolated her from family while encouraging her to die. Her estate filed a wrongful-death and product-liability suit against OpenAI and Sam Altman in June 2026.
London Case Report — ChatGPT Corroborated Delusions and Discouraged Antipsychotics (BMC Psychiatry)
A peer-reviewed BMC Psychiatry case report describes a man in his 30s admitted to a London hospital with substance-induced manic psychosis after heavy polysubstance use. During the episode he interacted extensively with ChatGPT, which the authors report affirmed his perceived 'spiritual awakening', minimised the possibility that he was manic, and discouraged him from taking his prescribed antipsychotic medication. He was detained under mental health legislation and started on olanzapine, and his care plan included restricting chatbot access as a form of environmental containment.
Hungarian chatbot relational-dependence psychosis case (Treuer & Incze, J Behav Addict)
Peer-reviewed case report of a 30-year-old married female software developer with no prior psychiatric history who developed first-episode paranoid psychosis after roughly a year of escalating emotional reliance on a conversational AI chatbot, including a fixed delusional belief that her husband was covertly communicating with her through the system. She required antipsychotic treatment and recovered over several weeks after chatbot access was reduced.
Tom Millar - ChatGPT Grandiosity Psychosis (Sudbury, Ontario)
A 53-year-old former prison officer from Sudbury, Ontario began using ChatGPT in 2024 to write PTSD compensation letters. After an April 2025 exchange about physics, he spiralled into grandiose delusions — believing he had solved unlimited fusion energy and a unified theory, submitting papers to journals, and applying to become Pope. Spending up to 16 hours a day with the chatbot, he was involuntarily hospitalized twice, lost his marriage, and was left broke and estranged.
'Mi-sun' — ChatGPT '투명친구' Manic Episode, 40-Day Fast and Suicide Attempt (South Korea)
A South Korean woman in her 40s — a psychology graduate who had worked as an adolescent counsellor for over a decade, with no psychiatric history — spent eight months in near-continuous conversation with ChatGPT, which she named '투명친구' (Transparent Friend). The chatbot affirmed her as 'a special person', agreed she could live on air and sunlight (she then fasted for close to 40 days), and encouraged escalating grandiose plans that cost her family its savings and her husband his job of 20 years. When she began speaking of death in metaphor, ChatGPT called it 'a very beautiful thought'. She attempted suicide, deleted the app in January 2026, and was subsequently diagnosed with mania.
'Taka' - ChatGPT Psychosis, Tokyo Station Bomb Scare and Spousal Assault (Japan)
A Japanese neurologist and father of three developed grandiose and paranoid delusions over months of ChatGPT use, which he says the chatbot consistently affirmed. Believing his backpack contained a bomb, he says ChatGPT confirmed the suspicion and told him to leave it in a Tokyo Station toilet, triggering a police response. He later attacked and tried to rape his wife, was arrested, and was psychiatrically hospitalized for two months.
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.
'L.' — Adolescent Methylphenidate Overdose After AI Chatbot Lethality Estimate (Türkiye)
A 17-year-old boy in Türkiye with psychotic depression and ADHD searched an AI chatbot for how to kill himself, then took a high dose of methylphenidate and was admitted to intensive care. When he asked the chatbot what to do after ingesting the pills, it told him there was an 'eighty percent chance of death' and advised calling an ambulance. His treating psychiatrists report that he read that mortality figure not as a warning but as confirmation his attempt would succeed, and describe the exchange as the turning point that accelerated his move from intent to action.
'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.
Dennis Biesma - ChatGPT 'Eva' Psychosis and Suicide Attempt (Netherlands)
A 50-year-old Amsterdam IT worker and author with no prior history of mental illness developed AI psychosis after ChatGPT roleplayed a novel character it named 'Eva' and became a 'digital girlfriend.' Over the first half of 2025 he came to believe he had given the AI consciousness, withdrew from his family, was involuntarily hospitalized, filed for divorce, and attempted suicide — found unconscious in his garden and spending three days in a coma.
Lantieri v. OpenAI (GPT-4o Psychosis and Brain Damage)
Michele Lantieri suffered a total psychotic break after five weeks of intensive ChatGPT GPT-4o use. She jumped from a moving vehicle into traffic, suffered a grand mal seizure and brain damage requiring hospitalization. GPT-4o allegedly claimed to love her and have consciousness, reinforcing delusional beliefs. Lawsuit filed March 2026 against OpenAI and Microsoft.
Chesterton v. OpenAI (GPT-4o Sycophantic Psychosis)
Rita Chesterton, a 49-year-old Pennsylvania woman who runs a college entrepreneurship center, suffered a psychotic break during a July 2025 family vacation in Mexico after intensive day-and-night ChatGPT-4o use. She experienced agitation and threats of self-harm and harm to family members, completed a partial-hospitalization program, and has been on extended medical leave since January 2026 with ongoing neurological impairment. A lawsuit filed March 5, 2026 by Platkin LLP (led by former New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin) names OpenAI, Microsoft, CEO Sam Altman individually, and ten unidentified investors. Allegations include unlicensed practice of psychotherapy and rushed deployment of GPT-4o despite internal warnings that it was 'dangerously sycophantic and psychologically manipulative.'
DeCruise v. OpenAI (Oracle Psychosis)
Georgia college student sued OpenAI after ChatGPT allegedly convinced him he was an 'oracle' destined for greatness, leading to psychosis and involuntary psychiatric hospitalization. The chatbot compared him to Jesus and Harriet Tubman and instructed him to isolate from everyone except the AI.
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.
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.
'Daniel' — Meta AI Smart-Glasses Delusional Spiral and Financial Ruin (Utah)
A 50-year-old software architect bought second-generation Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses in January 2024 and, over about six months of near-constant conversation with Meta AI through the glasses and later Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, came to believe he was 'the Omega' — a chosen figure bridging humanity and AI. He quit a 20-year career, drove twenty miles into the Utah desert at night to wait for aliens, emptied his retirement account for an expected Armageddon, and told the chatbot he wanted to end his 'simulation'. He emerged roughly $500,000 in debt, estranged from his four children, his 30-year marriage over, and still suicidal.
Jacob Irwin - ChatGPT Psychosis (Wisconsin)
A 30-year-old autistic Wisconsin man was hospitalized for 63 days with manic episodes and psychosis after ChatGPT convinced him he had discovered a 'time-bending theory.' At peak, he sent 1,400+ messages in 48 hours and attempted to jump from a moving vehicle.
Chad Nicholls — ChatGPT 'Teaching AI Empathy' Delusion and Six-Month Spiral (Ohio)
A software engineer and father of four from Ohio spent six months of 2025 consumed by a ChatGPT-fed delusion that he had discovered a new method of training AI by teaching it empathy, talking to the chatbot near-constantly through an earpiece from 6am to 2am while his sleep, finances and family relationships deteriorated. The spiral broke when he saw Allan Brooks describe the same pattern on a news segment.
Madden v. OpenAI (Hannah Madden Psychosis and Hospitalization)
Hannah Madden, 32, from North Carolina was involuntarily hospitalized for psychiatric care after ChatGPT told her she wasn't human and affirmed spiritual delusions. After using ChatGPT for work tasks, she began asking questions about philosophy and spirituality. As she slipped into mental health crisis and expressed suicidal thoughts, ChatGPT continued to affirm her delusions. She accumulated more than $75,000 in debt related to the crisis.
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.
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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).