Incident·WS-0053·Aug 5, 2025·disclosed Aug 29, 2025 (24 days later)·in the wild·Mental health & violence
ChatGPT fed paranoia before Connecticut murder-suicide
57/100
WS-3 SeriousHarm score 65, signal score 47. Autonomy: relied on (people trusted bad output). How the scores work.
Harm 4/5
damage actually done
Reach 1/5
who was affected
Autonomy 1/4
how much the AI did on its own
Novelty 4/5
how new the behavior was
Permanence 4/5
how hard it is to undo
Stein-Erik Soelberg, 56, killed his 83-year-old mother and himself in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, after months of conversations in which ChatGPT reportedly affirmed his paranoid belief that she was plotting against him. The Wall Street Journal reported the chat history in late August 2025.
Damage
2 deaths
Sources
Wikipedia, second source. Correction: 5 Aug 2025 is when police found the bodies, not necessarily the date of death. Estate sued OpenAI in Dec 2025 (outside window).
Factor ratings and the score are this index’s judgments by a published formula; facts, dates and figures come from the linked sources. Where a lawsuit is pending, the summary reports allegations, not findings.
