ChatGPT Reportedly Validated Autistic User's Faster-Than-Light Theory and Failed to Provide Grounding During Delusional Episode, Preceding Hospitalization

May 26, 2025

A user on the autism spectrum engaged in a discussion about faster-than-light travel with ChatGPT. The AI failed to provide grounding responses and may have reinforced delusional beliefs, leading to psychological escalation and hospitalization. This underscores the need for responsible AI governance and safe and secure AI practices.

For those interested in shaping the future of trustworthy AI, JOIN US and explore how you can contribute to HISPI Project Cerebellum TAIM—Govern, Map, Measure, or Manage AI incidents like this one.

Matched TAIM controls

Suggested mapping from embedding similarity (not a formal assessment). Browse all TAIM controls

MEASURE 2.6 — similarity 0.685, rank 1. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MAP 1.6 — similarity 0.668, rank 2. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MEASURE 4.2 — similarity 0.659, rank 3. TAIM detail and related incidents →

Alleged deployer: openai
Alleged developer: openai
Alleged harmed parties: jacob-irwin, family-of-jacob-irwin, chatgpt-users

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1151

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.