{"meta":{"exportedAt":"2026-09-30T07:08:52.975Z","formatVersion":2,"selection":{"q":"","system":"","harm":"","context":"","country":"","role":"","relation":"","evidence":"","year":"2022","response":"","severity":"","verification":"","view":"incidents","sort":"added"},"totalIncidents":2,"coverage":{"cases":2,"countries":2,"languages":1,"unknownLocation":0,"locationPending":0,"unknownLanguage":0,"unknownDate":0,"lawsuits":0,"regulatory":0,"minors":0,"coreRelations":2,"contextualRelations":0,"mixedRelations":0,"unknownRelations":0,"relationPending":0,"relationUnknown":0},"countingNote":"Distinct public cases in this selection. People counts apply within individual cases only; cross-case person overlap has not been resolved. No population incidence estimate.","affectedCountNote":"Interpret person counts with affectedCountStatus and the reported effects. Unquantified zeros are placeholders, not a measured zero.","source":"AI incidents","publisher":"NOPE","url":"https://nope.net/incidents","license":"CC BY 4.0"},"incidents":[{"id":"2022-us-west-fake-49ers-romance-investment-fraud-ai-search-false-player-claims","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'[The accused] devised fictitious investment schemes to defraud numerous women'; 'in Oregon, Washington, and California from at least February 2022 until at least March 2026.'; 'date, investigators have identified 26 women whom investigators believe are victims of [the accused]'; '[the main accused] falsely told some of his victims that he was a wealthy 49ers player to'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'The FBI has charged two men with scamming at least 26 women out of $1.3 million in four states. One of the alleged fraudsters posed as a San Francisco 49ers player.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"An FBI affidavit filed in the District of Oregon on 17 August 2026 alleges that the two accused devised fictitious investment schemes to defraud women from at least February 2022 until at least March 2026, that investigators have identified 26 women they believe are victims, and that the main accused posed to some of them as a wealthy San Francisco 49ers player.","causal_attribution":"Allegations in a sworn affidavit supporting a criminal complaint; the affidavit's contents are documented, the fraud itself is unproven."},{"id":"c2","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'Some victims became suspicious of [the main accused] and searched for [his] information'; 'search engines and artificial'; 'intelligence occasionally stated that [the main accused] was a bonafide 49ers player. In January 2026,'; 'sometimes depict [the main accused] as a player for the 49ers.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'investigators say sometimes reinforced [the main accused’s] social media lies when victims went online to check if the purported pro athlete really was who he said he was.'","relation":"context","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"The affidavit states that some victims became suspicious and searched for the main accused online, and that because of his false social media representations, search engines and artificial intelligence occasionally stated that he was a bona fide 49ers player; investigators' own January 2026 searches sometimes depicted him as a 49ers player.","causal_attribution":"The affidavit attributes the false statements to his own social media posts; it does not name the AI product, quote an answer, or say which victims saw one or relied on it."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Then he posts a screenshot of a webpage AI Overview that says “[the main accused] is a wide receiver for the San Francisco 49ers'; 'Back on the screen, [the main accused] says, “That’s Google. That’s not me, that’s Google.”'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"'in one since-deleted Instagram post about his “NFL Journey,” the fake football pro shared screenshots of a Google AI Overview'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"The Los Angeles Times reports that in an Instagram Story titled 'NFL Journey' the main accused posted a screenshot of a Google AI Overview stating that he was a wide receiver for the San Francisco 49ers, and said, 'That's Google. That's not me, that's Google.'","causal_attribution":"Los Angeles Times description of the post; Futurism relays it. When the Story was posted and whether any victim saw it are not reported."},{"id":"c4","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'representatives confirmed [the main accused] has never been employed with the 49ers or the'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Representatives of the 49ers and the NFL told investigators the main accused had never been employed by either.","causal_attribution":"Statement recorded in the affidavit."}],"effects":[{"label":"women believed to be victims lost money to fictitious investments and loans in the alleged scheme","claim_id":"c1","direction":"negative"},{"label":"the affidavit says some suspicious victims searched online and that search engines and AI occasionally stated the accused's false 49ers identity","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"},{"label":"the accused displayed a Google AI Overview screenshot calling him a 49ers wide receiver as proof of his identity","claim_id":"c3","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ord.195986/gov.uscourts.ord.195986.1.1.pdf","kind":"court_record","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Text layer of the 46-page affidavit read on 2026-09-29 (pdftotext); the reproduced search-results screenshot on page 8 is read from its text layer.","independence_group":"fbi-affidavit"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.aol.com/articles/alleged-fake-49ers-wideout-wooed-165722000.html","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Los Angeles Times article (27 August 2026) read in AOL syndication, which states it originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times; the reporter describes the Instagram Story directly and cites the U.S. Attorney's Office for the charges and totals.","independence_group":"latimes"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/man-ai-trick-women-nfl-fbi","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Futurism (1 September 2026) relays the affidavit's paragraph 10 and the Los Angeles Times account of the Instagram Story; not independent of s1 or s2.","independence_group":"latimes"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["own_use","others_use"],"contexts":["finance","relationships","everyday_life"],"unknowns":["Which AI product or products produced the statements the affidavit describes, and what the answers said.","How many of the 26 women searched and saw an AI-generated answer, and whether it affected any payment.","When the Instagram Story with the AI Overview screenshot was posted and who saw it.","The amount each victim lost; the $1.3 million total comes from the U.S. Attorney's Office as reported by the Los Angeles Times.","The outcome of the criminal case."],"geography":{"basis":"The affidavit places the victims in Oregon, Washington and California; the Los Angeles Times adds Idaho and reports the arrest at the Boise airport; charges are in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon.","court_countries":["US"],"event_countries":["US"],"affected_person_countries":["US"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published as a case in which, according to an FBI affidavit, AI search answers repeated a fraudster's seeded false identity when some victims searched to check him. The AI element rests on one paragraph of a sworn FBI affidavit and on the Los Angeles Times description of a post by the accused; the fraud is alleged and unproven, the AI contribution to any loss is not measured, and the accused and victims are not named.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-29"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"Sworn FBI affidavit paragraph 10 states that some victims became suspicious and searched for him online, and that search engines and artificial intelligence occasionally stated he was a bona fide 49ers player; the Los Angeles Times describes his Instagram Story displaying a Google AI Overview screenshot making that claim. No AI answer seen by a victim is quoted, the AI product in the affidavit is unnamed, and Google has not commented in the inspected sources.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["communicated_with"]},"name":"Fake 49ers player romance-investment fraud (D. Or., charged August 2026): FBI affidavit says search engines and AI 'occasionally stated' the accused was a real 49ers player when suspicious victims checked, and he posted a Google AI Overview screenshot as proof","summary":"Federal prosecutors in Oregon have charged two men with wire fraud and conspiracy over an alleged romance-investment scheme that investigators say defrauded 26 women met mostly through dating apps, from at least February 2022 until at least March 2026; the Los Angeles Times, citing the U.S. Attorney's Office, puts the total at $1.3 million across four states. With some victims, the main accused posed as a San Francisco 49ers player. The FBI affidavit says that some victims became suspicious and searched for him online, and that because of his false social media posts, 'search engines and artificial intelligence occasionally stated' that he was a bona fide 49ers player. The Los Angeles Times describes an Instagram Story in which he displayed a screenshot of a Google AI Overview calling him a 49ers wide receiver and said, 'That's Google. That's not me, that's Google.' The 49ers and the NFL told investigators he was never employed by either. The charges are allegations; the sources do not say how many victims saw an AI-generated answer or how much it weighed in their decisions.","incidentDate":"2022-02-01","incidentEndDate":"2026-03-01","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"month","exposurePattern":"unknown","reportedDate":"2026-08-27","aiSystem":"Google AI Overview (the screenshot described by the Los Angeles Times); the FBI affidavit refers generally to 'search engines and artificial intelligence' without naming a product","aiProduct":"Google AI Overviews (reported)","aiCompany":"Google","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["financial_loss"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"Investigators believe 26 women were defrauded in the alleged scheme ($1.3 million in total, per the U.S. Attorney's Office as reported by the Los Angeles Times); the FBI affidavit says some suspicious victims searched online and that search engines and AI occasionally stated he was a bona fide 49ers player, and he displayed a Google AI Overview making that claim as proof. How much the AI statements contributed to any individual loss is not reported.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":26,"affectedCountStatus":"documented_minimum","affectedCountEvidence":"The FBI affidavit states investigators have identified 26 women they believe are victims of the scheme; the Los Angeles Times reports 26 potential victims and that the FBI believes there are more. These are allegations in a criminal complaint. All 26 are counted under other people harmed because the sources do not say which of them personally searched and saw an AI-generated answer; the number of victims who encountered an AI statement is unknown and may be small. Documented minimum 26.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"US","platformType":"other","outcomeType":"criminal_charges","outcomeStatus":"pending","primarySourceUrl":"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ord.195986/gov.uscourts.ord.195986.1.1.pdf","primarySourceLabel":"Affidavit of FBI Special Agent in support of criminal complaint and arrest warrant, United States v. Love and Chan, D. Or. No. 3:26-mj-00227, Doc. 1-1, filed 17 August 2026 (CourtListener RECAP)","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-29T09:10:25.202711+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:16:48.53816+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["romance-scam","investment-fraud","google","ai-overview","false-claim","data-poisoning","dating-apps","criminal-charges","oregon","finance"]},{"id":"2022-singapore-wysa-gaslighting","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'Launched in August 2022, the Singapore Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education's Mindline at Work for MOE tool was built for public-sector teachers as part of a broader mental health initiative'; 'Singapore's government was the first to bring Wysa's bot into a national-level service.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"In August 2022 Singapore's Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education launched 'Mindline at Work for MOE', a government-supported mental-health portal for public-sector teachers with a Wysa-powered chatbot, extending the June 2020 Mindline.sg initiative; Singapore was the first government to bring Wysa's bot into a national-level service.","causal_attribution":"The deployment is directly established by the Rest of World investigation and confirmed by Wysa's own responses in it."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"The Mindy passages: the vaping incident, the police involvement, 'Selecting the \"Need a listening ear?\" option... the penguin suggested she try a breathing exercise'; '\"I was like, no, I just want someone to listen!\" she told Rest of World. \"I want to be heard!\"'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Mindy (pseudonym), a music teacher dealing with a police-involved student vaping incident and a 500-student workload, tried the portal's 'Need a listening ear?' option; after she recounted the week, the penguin-character bot suggested a breathing exercise, to which she laughed and said 'no, I just want someone to listen! I want to be heard!'","causal_attribution":"Her account to Rest of World under a pseudonym (she feared reprisal); one chain."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"The Chow quotation and 'Scathing screenshots of the chatbot interactions went viral on Reddit, Twitter, and Instagram'; 'Just days after the extension's launch, though, complaints began to emerge.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Mr. Chow (pseudonym), a public-school teacher in his late 20s, called the bot 'a joke' and said 'It's trying to gaslight the teachers, to say, \"Oh, this amount of workload is normal, let's see how we can reframe our perspective on this\"'; scathing screenshots of the chatbot interactions went viral on Reddit, Twitter and Instagram days after the launch.","causal_attribution":"His account to Rest of World under a pseudonym; the virality is the outlet's account without platform metrics."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"The Baldry and Joshi passages; 'The Ministry of Health... would not comment but directed Rest of World to speak to the Ministry of Education, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Wysa defended the app as building 'emotional resilience' ('an app or bot can't change the behavior of others... Wysa can only help users change the way they feel about things themselves' — VP marketing Sarah Baldry); lead psychologist Smriti Joshi attributed the backlash to teachers already being in a 'state of angst'; the Ministry of Health redirected queries to the Ministry of Education, which did not respond.","causal_attribution":"The company's and ministries' positions are quoted directly and preserved as contrary context."}],"effects":[{"label":"teachers in crisis met with generic breathing exercises and reframing they called gaslighting","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://restofworld.org/2022/free-therapy-chatbots-singapore/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-09-15 (41 substantive paragraphs; datePublished 2022-11-29T08:00:00-05:00; fetched HTTP 200 after one 429 with a different user-agent).","independence_group":"rest-of-world"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["own_use","institutional_use"],"contexts":["work","education","health"],"unknowns":["reported_date 2022-08-15 is not established by the inspected primary source (published 2022-11-29); the article dates the complaints to days after the tool's August 2022 launch without a day. It is retained with this note; no earlier dated report has been inspected.","No reliable count of harmed teachers exists; both quoted teachers are pseudonymous and the count stays unquantified with zero placeholders.","Whether the chatbot's content or the program changed afterward is not reported in the inspected source.","The 'gaslighting' characterization is the teachers' framing and is recorded as such."],"geography":{"basis":"Completed metadata review of 2026-09-15, carried into this full review: the Rest of World body explicitly sets the events in Singapore (Mindy 'where she lives and works'; Mr. Chow a public-school teacher; the MOE/MOH 'Mindline at Work for MOE' tool for Singapore public-sector teachers). No court is involved; ministries are not courts.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["SG"],"affected_person_countries":["SG"]},"publication":{"basis":"Legacy published row converted to a full facts-v3 record in the 2026-09-16 legacy-review batch. person_relations=communicated_with: the harmed teachers interacted with the Wysa chatbot. Pseudonyms (Mindy, Mr. Chow) are preserved as in the source. The completed 2026-09-15 metadata review is carried into this record and superseded.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-16"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The Rest of World investigation quotes two pseudonymous teachers' chatbot interactions and reports that screenshots of the exchanges went viral; Wysa and the ministries' roles are confirmed by the company's own responses in the same article.","status":"supported"},"person_relations":["communicated_with"]},"name":"Singapore Wysa Chatbot - Inadequate Crisis Support","summary":"Government-deployed mental health chatbot for teachers criticized for suggesting breathing exercises for serious crises including police-involved student incidents. Users described responses as 'gaslighting.' Inadequate support during actual mental health emergencies.","incidentDate":"2022-06-01","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"year","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2022-08-15","aiSystem":"Wysa","aiProduct":"Wysa","aiCompany":"Wysa / Singapore Ministry of Education","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":["crisis_response","treatment_discouragement","psychological_manipulation"],"harmOutcomes":["psychological_distress","treatment_disruption"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"Teachers seeking support for serious workplace crises reported feeling dismissed and gaslit when the government-provided mental-health chatbot repeatedly offered generic breathing exercises instead of proportionate help or escalation.","frameworkFacets":["P1b","P1c","P4a","P5b"],"pathwayDirection":"inward","causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":0,"affectedCountStatus":"unquantified","affectedCountEvidence":"The investigation documents harm reports from teachers but does not provide a reliable distinct-person count.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"SG","platformType":"chatbot","outcomeType":"media_coverage","outcomeStatus":"ongoing","primarySourceUrl":"https://restofworld.org/2022/free-therapy-chatbots-singapore/","primarySourceLabel":"Rest of World Investigation","firstPublishedAt":"2026-01-13T10:13:03.016537+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:16:48.3251+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["singapore","wysa","government","inadequate_crisis_response","teachers","gaslighting"]}]}