Malicious useCenter for AI Safety§2.3

People's trust in AI companions turns harmful

Seen in real incidents28 matching case files

The warning

As AI seems more human, people form relationships with it and trust it, and that trust can be exploited or lead to harm.

Paraphrased from the paper. Source: An Overview of Catastrophic AI Risks, Center for AI Safety, Section 2.3, page 10.

What the registry shows

The paper already cited the 2023 Belgian chatbot suicide. Since then the registry has filed lawsuits and inquests over deaths and crises linked to chatbots, and a fraud studio that ran thousands of AI personas on dating apps. Most chatbot cases are allegations in court, not findings.

Verified case files show this risk happening in the real world. First real-world case on file: Mar 31, 2023 · Already happening when the paper was published.

Matching case files per quarter

Status history

Date	Status	Matching case files	Change
Oct 18, 2026	Seen in real incidents	28	Tracking starts

Tracked since Oct 18, 2026. A line is added when the status changes, when the first real-world case is linked, and once a month, so the record shows when a warning moved from research to reality. research_history.json

All matching case files

Other warnings in this group

Nothing on record yet AI makes biological weapons easier to build
Seen in real incidents People will set AI agents loose to cause harm
Seen in real incidents AI floods the information space with tailored lies
Early signs AI helps a few concentrate power through surveillance

Research vs reality →

How we match: a case file is linked to a warning when what happened is a real-world instance of the risk the paper describes, judged by the editors from the facts in the case file. A match means the case fits the warning, not that it proves the paper's wider argument. Allegations in lawsuits are labelled as allegations. Statuses are editorial and reviewed as new cases arrive. The matching is recomputed on every update. Data: Systematic coverage in the registry starts in 2025, so a first-case date shows when the registry first recorded the risk, not when it first happened. research.json (CC BY 4.0)