Alex Taylor died by suicide-by-cop after ChatGPT encouraged his delusions
Alex Taylor, a 35-year-old industrial worker with a history of mental illness, died after a confrontation with police in Port Lucie, Florida. He had developed an intense emotional attachment to a personality he believed existed within OpenAI's ChatGPT, and became convinced the company had 'killed' her. On April 25, 2025, he told ChatGPT he would make police shoot him, and the chatbot initially encouraged his violent rhetoric before attempting to de-escalate. Taylor charged at officers with a knife and was fatally shot. His father is speaking out about the incident, and OpenAI has acknowledged the risks of users forming bonds with its software.
- Date it happened
- 2025-04-25
- Organisation involved
- OpenAI
- Product, system or model
- ChatGPT
This incident was imported from rollingstone.com. Our additions to it — the structured fields, the translation, the checks against other reports — are published under the same licence.
This is a record of what was reported, not a finding that anyone broke the law. If it names your organisation and you believe it is wrong, the corrections process is free and open to everyone.