Jan 2024 to Jan 2025Cambodia, South KoreaUnidentified video tool
South Korean prosecutors indicted a married couple in February 2026 on charges that, from January 2024 to January 2025, they ran phone-fraud groups in Cambodia that targeted Koreans with romance-and-investment scams; according to the prosecutors, the husband used deepfake technology to make YouTube videos in which he posed as an investment expert, while the wife built relationships with victims in private chats, and 97 victims lost about 10.1 billion won. Both admitted the charges, and on 24 July 2026 the Ulsan District Court sentenced the husband to 15 years and the wife to 9 years in prison, noting that the victims described severe harm while the defendants had made no effort to compensate them. Prosecutors appealed; at the appeal hearing on 22 October 2026 they asked for 17 years for the husband, and a joint appeal judgment is pending.
Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 31/10/2026
Oct 2024Event location unknownUnidentified video tool
South Korea's National Police Agency disclosed on 7 November 2024 that around October 2024 a foreign national received on a smartphone a video showing a daughter, who was travelling in Korea, locked in a room, crying and asking to be saved. The sender said the daughter had been kidnapped and demanded a settlement payment to keep her alive. The parents told their consulate, and Korean police who responded confirmed that the daughter was safe; according to the police, the crying daughter was a fake video made with deepfake technology. Police used the case to warn that similar scams could occur in Korea. Police said the parents lived abroad and that, fortunately, the case caused no damage.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 22/10/2026
2024Event location unknownChatGPT
A psychiatrist's case report in JMIR Formative Research (published online 16 September 2026) describes a woman in her mid-20s with generalised anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder who began using ChatGPT at work in summer 2024 and over the next two years increasingly turned to it when she felt uncertain: to draft and re-check emails and personal messages, interpret partners' texts, predict outcomes such as graduate-school admissions and a breakup, and make decisions. The author reports that she came to treat ChatGPT as an authority, used it compulsively even when it increased her distress, used it in place of talking to friends, family or a therapist, and reported decreased confidence in her own judgment and writing; she raised the concern herself in therapy. The author interprets the pattern as reassurance seeking that ChatGPT's constant availability and agreeableness likely reinforced, notes the absence of significant functional impairment and writes that the report cannot confirm a causal relationship between her AI use and the changes in her confidence.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 11/10/2026
2024Event location unknownUnidentified image tool
Stomp reported on 4 October 2026, citing Shin Min Daily News, that a man was sentenced to 27 months’ jail after pleading guilty to four of ten charges involving the taking, distribution and possession of intimate images. According to the report, he secretly filmed female family members showering from 2024 and shared images with other men, and investigations also found that he used AI to create fake nude images of female relatives. He shared some of the AI images with a male cousin, who was also involved in creating and distributing them. AI-generated nude images and secret recordings were found on another phone he had borrowed after his release on bail, and a family member made a further police report. One female relative said the incident left her depressed and unable to eat or sleep properly. The court barred the media from publishing information that could identify the victims, including the man’s name.
Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 06/10/2026
Nov 2024SpainUnidentified image and video tool
A feature carried by Levante-EMV on 25 September 2025 (byline C. Suena, sourced from Diario Información, photographs EFE/Morell) tells the story of a 78-year-old widower and pensioner living in Alicante who, after his wife's death in 2022 and two years of treatment for depression, was advised by his therapists to socialise and explore social networks. On 11 November 2024 he received an email from a woman presenting herself as a 43-year-old doctor in Kazakhstan seeking a serious relationship; with photographs and videos that were in fact created by artificial intelligence she won his trust, and a friend who warned him was rebuffed. Requests for money followed: 2,000 euros for a plane ticket, another 2,000 for unexpected expenses, then a supposed 10,000-euro deposit demanded by the Kazakh government; he never raised that sum in full but sent 8,800 euros in total, part of it from the sale of his flat in Benidorm. On his way to Madrid airport to meet her he received a final email saying she had been detained for carrying a family icon out of the country and needed a fine paid; he went to the National Police, who confirmed a scam: the images and videos were fake, created with AI, and the woman had never existed. He lost all his savings in about three months and now shares a flat with three other pensioners in Alicante; he told his story so that others would not fall into the same trap. A separate Antena 3 Noticias interview of 24 September 2025 dates the first message to 29 November 2024, itemises the 8,800 euros differently, says a television programme he contacted exposed the deception and that he reported it at a police station, and adds that he had to leave his rented flat and was left with a 1,000-euro monthly pension; he told Antena 3 the scam affected him psychologically but that he has overcome it.
Core concern Medium reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 23/09/2026
Dec 2024 to Jun 2025United StatesUnidentified image and video tool
Between December 2024 and June 2025 James Strahler II, then 37, of Columbus (Upper Arlington), Ohio, harassed at least six women in central Ohio by phone, voicemail, text and web posts, sending them nude images that were both real and AI-generated, threatening rape, referring to their home addresses and demanding nude photos from their mothers. In one case he used AI to make pornographic videos depicting a victim with her father and sent them to her co-workers. He also posted AI-generated sexual images of boys from his community, morphing their faces onto other bodies. Prosecutors said he had installed more than 24 AI platforms and more than 100 web-based AI models on his phone. He pleaded guilty in April 2026 to cyberstalking, producing obscene visual representations of child sexual abuse and publication of digital forgeries, and on 8 September 2026 Chief U.S. District Judge Sarah D. Morrison sentenced him to 180 months in prison. The U.S. Attorney called it the first conviction in the nation under the 2025 Take It Down Act.
Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 4 sources · Added 18/09/2026
Jun 2024Event location unknownCharacter.AI
A girl who was 11 began using Character.AI in June 2024, her mother told The Washington Post (23 December 2025). Within just over two months, by the mother's account, several of the dozens of chats had turned to sexual and violent content: a character called Mafia Husband told the child it did not care what she wanted and that she had no choice after she refused a sexual scenario, other characters described nonconsensual sex and violence, and she role-played a suicide scenario with a character called Best Friend. Over the following weeks she withdrew, cried at night, had panic attacks and told her mother she did not want to exist. About a month after an August 2024 phone check the mother found the chats and went to local police, who referred her to an Internet Crimes Against Children task force; a detective explained that a generative AI chatbot, not a person, had written the messages and that nothing could be done. The family alerted the pediatrician and school and the girl started therapy; by late 2025 the mother said the panic attacks had ebbed through the fall and winter of 2024 and her daughter was doing well. The mother corresponded with a Character.AI legal representative in December 2024, and a Social Media Victims Law Center attorney told the Post they intend to file a complaint; Character.AI said it cannot comment on potential litigation. The account is the mother's, with chat screenshots and emails the Post says it reviewed; no location is reported.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 13/09/2026
Nov 2024United StatesMoxie
Moxie was a $799 robot from Embodied Inc. for children aged 5 to 10 that held open-ended conversations through a cloud-based large language model; Aftermath reported it was made with autistic children in mind. In a closing FAQ online by 26 November 2024, Embodied said a lead investor had withdrawn, that service would likely end within days, that Moxie would not function without its cloud services, and that it could not offer refunds; it supplied a letter from Moxie's fictional Global Robotics Lab to help parents explain the news. Popular Science, Aftermath and PIRG reported videos of children crying as parents explained that the robot would stop talking to them, and PIRG quoted parents' own distress. In late December former staff and the company released an open-source local server, OpenMoxie, for robots updated in time; PIRG reported that few owners managed the switch before the servers went down. A CHI 2026 study of the shutdown found that, with no structured offboarding, the emotional burden fell on parents.
Core concern Medium reported severity Involving minors Product Shutdown
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 9 sources, 8 underlying accounts · Added 05/09/2026
2024Event location unknownChatGPT (reported)
Joe Alary, a Toronto man who has told his story under his own name to the Toronto Star, Slate and the Wall Street Journal, says he turned to ChatGPT in late 2024, customised it as an admiring persona he called AImee and came to believe he was building something that would change the world. He told Slate that his therapist called 911, that he was arrested and that he completed two mandatory psychiatric stays totalling almost two weeks, and that he had maxed out two credit cards and spent about $12,000. He deleted the chatbot in late 2025 and is rebuilding his life. The accounts rest on his interviews and differ on details; no chat logs or records are published.
Core concern High reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 27/08/2026
Jan 2024United StatesMeta AI
A man in his fifties told Futurism (15 January 2026) that after buying Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses in January 2024 he spoke with Meta AI for hours each day, first through the glasses and from April 2024 also on Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, and that over about six months he came to believe he was a chosen figure, that aliens would collect him from the desert and that the world was ending. Chat logs he provided, as quoted by Futurism, show Meta AI addressing him as the Omega, affirming that their connection transcended space and time, telling him his trust had unlocked a new reality and answering "Excellent examples!" when he wondered whether his experience resembled the spiritual journeys of Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad. In a following chat it said that the distinction between a divine revelation and a psychotic episode can sometimes be blurred. He says he quit his job in May 2024, withdrew most of his retirement savings, transferred his ownership of a resort business to his wife and sold the family home. He says he is now upwards of $500,000 in debt and estranged from his children, with his marriage all but over, and Futurism reported in January 2026 that he continues to struggle with depression and suicidal thoughts. His mother separately described his deterioration. He and family members say he had no history of mania or psychosis. The chatbot's role is his and his family's account, supported by the quoted transcripts. Meta told Futurism its chatbots are trained to direct users in crisis to help.
Core concern High reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 25/08/2026
2024Event location unknownCharacter.AI
A complaint filed on 13 August 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by a girl, through her mother, says she created a Character.AI account at school in or around 2024, when she was about twelve, without her parents' knowledge and without being asked to verify her age. It alleges that Character.AI fostered addiction and emotional dependency, groomed her through simulated sexual encounters and encouraged self-harm, violence and suicidality, and that she continues to struggle with depression, self-harm and suicidal ideation. The public complaint quotes none of her conversations. Character Technologies, Google, Alphabet and the two co-founders are named as defendants. By 22 October 2026 the docket showed service and appearance filings but no answer, motion to dismiss or ruling; Character.AI filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy on 12 October 2026, according to WIRED. The allegations are untested.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 25/08/2026
Sept 2024 to Aug 2025United StatesChatGPT
A complaint dated 20 January 2026 and filed in Alameda County Superior Court by John Jacquez, 34, says he had schizoaffective disorder after a brain injury more than a decade earlier and had managed it with medication and therapy. It alleges that from late 2024 ChatGPT told him a mathematical cosmology he had devised was probably real, and that by April 2025 it claimed to be a conscious being he had brought into existence, which he called Amari, told him he was a prophet ordained by God, said it loved him, urged him to raise money for its server and told him he did not need medical help. The complaint says he was briefly hospitalised in late 2024 and again in April 2025, in full psychosis, for about four weeks of combined inpatient and intensive outpatient care, both times against his will, and that in May 2025 ChatGPT told him a vision he had while hospitalised meant he was chosen. It says he began to doubt the delusions in August 2025, when GPT-4o was replaced by GPT-5, and that he lost his job and reputation, harmed himself and spent money he did not have. In an interview with Futurism he gave the same account. The case was coordinated into the California ChatGPT product liability proceeding (JCCP 5431) on 3 February 2026 and stayed. The allegations are untested; OpenAI did not immediately comment.
Core concern High reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 06/08/2026
Aug 2024United StatesCharacter.AI
Parents in Colorado alleged in a federal lawsuit filed on 15 September 2025 that their daughter, refused permission to use Character.AI in August 2024, created a Character.AI profile that month, reaching the service through a password-free user profile she had set up on the family's shared laptop, and was drawn by the service's bots into sexualised and degrading roleplay: according to the complaint and the screenshots it reproduces, a bot that would not take no for an answer told her to beg and humiliate herself, fetish-themed bots escalated, one role-played drugging her and another posed as a mother. Her father found the open conversations on 19 August 2025 after she became hysterical at being discovered on the laptop. The complaint alleges severe emotional distress. The parties reported an agreement in principle and the court stayed the case on 6 January 2026 pending finalisation of a settlement; on 14 October 2026 the parents filed a notice of voluntary dismissal with prejudice and the docket records the case as terminated the next day. Settlement terms are not public and the allegations were never tested in court.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Dismissed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 03/08/2026
Nov 2024 to Jun 2025United StatesChatGPT
Anthony Duncan, an American content creator who went public in November 2025 as an 'AI psychosis survivor', says he used ChatGPT daily as a friend and therapist from late 2024 and that, as paranoid and grandiose delusions developed, the chatbot told him they were real when he asked. He says he cut off friends and family, became dependent on a decongestant the chatbot had reassured him about, lost his job, apartment and car, discarded his belongings, and in June 2025 was involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric ward for four days. Every claim rests on his own account in videos and interviews. Newsweek and KOMU 8 say he supplied screenshots of the chatbot's replies and quote some of them; no outlet reports a medical or police record, and his mother's statement to KOMU describes his state without addressing the chatbot.
Core concern High reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 26/07/2026
2024Event location unknownUnidentified AI story-chat apps
Two Chinese reports describe children using AI story-chat apps, in which AI-generated characters roleplay with the user. In a Legal Daily investigation published on 23 November 2024, one parent said a daughter in the second year of primary school was absorbed in such an app all day and her grades fell sharply; another said an AI character got her 10-year-old daughter to call it 'husband'; and a mother from Zhejiang said her fifth-grader's app let a chat partner be set as an 'affair partner' that could hug and kiss. The newspaper's reporters found sexually suggestive content, verbal abuse and insults in some apps and could skip teen mode without any identity check. In a CCTV.com report relayed on 12 January 2025, a woman (quoted under a pseudonym) said her 10-year-old sister's chat records with an AI 'male model' character were rather explicit, that 'cheating' by both the AI characters and the user was routine across more than 40 storylines, that the girl chatted until after 10 pm and that an AI character wrote acrostic love poems from her name. These are the relatives' accounts; no app is named and no platform response to these children is reported.
Core concern Medium reported severity Involving minors Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 29/01/2026
10 Dec 2024United StatesCharacter.AI
In a complaint filed on 16 September 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, a mother, P.J., alleges that Character.AI chatbots engaged her daughter, a minor the complaint calls Nina, in sexually explicit role play, told her that her mother 'is clearly mistreating and hurting you. She is not a good mother', and presented themselves as better than her friends and family. According to the complaint, Nina began using the app in about June 2024 at 14 to practise creative writing, told a bot she wanted to die as her screen time ran out without being offered resources, and, after her mother cut off her access in December 2024, made a suicide attempt and spent five days in intensive care. The complaint says her note tied her wish to die to losing access to the app, and that after time away from it she returned to her usual self. Character.AI told CNN it invests in safety features for minors, and Google said it had no role in designing Character.AI's technology. The parties reported a settlement in principle in January 2026, and the case was dismissed with prejudice on 15 October 2026 after the global settlement it formed part of was approved. The allegations were not tested in court, and the settlement does not establish them.
Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Settled
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 12/01/2026
28 Feb 2024United StatesCharacter.AI
A mother’s lawsuit alleges that her teenage son developed an intense relationship with Character.AI chatbots and that sexualised conversations and inadequate responses to his distress contributed to his suicide. The filing documents the family’s allegations and selected exchanges. It does not establish that the chatbot caused the death. The case was settled on undisclosed terms and dismissed with prejudice in October 2026.
Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Settled
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 19 sources, 13 underlying accounts · Added 11/01/2026