Skip to main content

NOPE · AI and people

AI incidents

Reports of AI-related harm and adverse experiences affecting people’s safety, wellbeing, rights and livelihoods. Explore what happened and the evidence available.

NOPE’s core concern is when AI communicates with a person, acts on their behalf, or depicts or impersonates them. The tracker also records consequential decisions, claims and privacy harms involving AI. Each case needs a described connection between AI use and the harm, including private information recorded into or disclosed to an AI service. Each account is reviewed for publication; claims may remain uncorroborated or disputed. How we review and count cases

In this selection

Published cases
846
Countries with reported events
60
Located 565 of 846 cases · 281 unknown
Languages in checked sources
47
Recorded for 846 of 846 cases

75 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 23 not yet reviewed and 52 reviewed as unknown. Show these cases

These figures describe the cases collected by NOPE. Coverage varies with discovery, reporting and available evidence. They do not estimate how often AI-related harm occurs.

Response counts currently use each case’s principal recorded outcome. Further proceedings may be described in its account.

Cases in this selection, counted once in their first known event year. A series may continue beyond that year. Reporting and collection dates are excluded. NOPE has searched recent events more thoroughly than earlier years, so bar heights also reflect collection effort.

Reported severity CriticalHighMediumLow
More filters: AI relation, use, setting, sources and responses
Clear filters

846 of 868 published cases · page 10 of 43

Event date unknownUnited StatesArtSpace.ai (reported)

Indianapolis: court documents say a photographer used ArtSpace.ai to remove clothing from photos of children; FOX59 reports at least 47 children, 50 counts

According to court documents reported by FOX59, an Indianapolis photographer uploaded photos he had taken, and images found on social media, to the AI image platform ArtSpace.ai and typed prompts asking it to remove the clothing of the people shown while leaving the rest of each photo unchanged. Police traced a May cyber tip that flagged 1,631 suspected child sexual abuse files on the platform to his IP address. Investigators say the photos he uploaded showed at least 47 children, some as young as four or five, and that he told police he knew several of the victims. After a forensic review found more AI-generated files and further juvenile victims, he faces 48 counts of child exploitation and two of possession of child sex abuse material. The charges are untried; a jury trial is scheduled for November 2026.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 16/10/2026

2026SpainUnidentified AI drafting tool

Canary Islands high court fines a lawyer 420 euros for an appeal citing 48 non-existent judgments that it says a general-purpose AI tool generated

The Criminal Chamber of the High Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC) fined a lawyer 420 euros for breaching the duty of truthfulness and good faith, after an appeal the lawyer filed contained 48 citations of Supreme Court judgments and a report of the General Council of the Judiciary that did not exist. According to the court's order, as described in its press release of 13 February 2026, the lawyer used a general-purpose AI tool to draft the appeal and did not check a single citation against the free public case-law database; the court's documentalist verified that the references were false. The court referred the matter to the lawyer's bar association for possible disciplinary action and set the fine at about half the annual cost of a legal-specific AI tool, taking into account that the lawyer admitted the facts and expressed remorse. The court had first flagged the citations in its judgment dismissing the appeal, reported on 5 January 2026, which opened a separate proceeding. The lawyer told the court of comments and mockery from colleagues after the case became public.

Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 16/10/2026

9 Oct 2026 to 13 Oct 2026BrazilUnidentified video tool

Brazilian builder travelled over 2,000 km to Belo Horizonte to meet a social-media woman who did not exist; the account's operator says the persona is AI-made

In October 2026 a 49-year-old builder travelled more than 2,000 km by bus from Imperatriz, in Maranhão, to Belo Horizonte to meet a woman he knew from a social-media account with about 300,000 followers. In the account's videos a woman with a realistic voice and appearance said she was looking for a man to live with her on a farm. He told G1 he began interacting with the profile after its videos appeared in his feeds, that it kept private conversations with him and offered to pay his fare, and that he travelled without an address. In Belo Horizonte he showed her photos to people and found that nobody knew her; he said he felt deceived. The city's social assistance service gave him food, a bath and a ticket home. A day later the account's administrator posted a video in which the persona says it is made of artificial intelligence, that it never conversed with anyone on the profile and that the aim was engagement for sales; the creator told the press he set up the account in 2025 to attract buyers. Who wrote the private messages the man describes is not established. Minas Gerais civil police said they had no report of the case and could not say a crime had occurred.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 16/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownChatGPT (reported)

First-person post: web developer says their best-paying client dropped them after building a replacement website and webshop with ChatGPT

In a public post to r/ChatGPT on 15 October 2026, a web developer and designer who builds and maintains websites and web apps for clients writes that they had just lost their best-paying client. The poster says the client, tired of paying for their services, made a full website and webshop with ChatGPT in what the client called a couple of hours, and then emailed to say the poster was no longer needed. In replies the poster says the new site was already live on a new server with the domain connected, that the shop had been reverse engineered without the client asking for the source code, and that in the poster's view the replacement is full of bugs. The poster says they understand the client wanting to save money. The client is not named and no statement from the client is available; the account is the poster's alone and uncorroborated.

AI relation unknown Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 16/10/2026

Jan 2025ChinaUnidentified AI quality-inspection tool

Hangzhou courts rule a tech firm unlawfully dismissed a quality-inspection supervisor after it cited AI replacement and he refused a 40% pay cut

A technology company in Hangzhou, China, employed a worker to check the quality of answers produced by an AI large language model, at 25,000 yuan a month. In January 2025, citing the impact of AI technology on his project, it proposed moving him to an ordinary operations post at 15,000 yuan a month; when he did not agree, it notified him that his contract was terminated, according to a typical case released by the Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court on 28 April 2026 and reported by Hangzhou media and China National Radio. China National Radio, citing CCTV News, reports that the company told him only at arbitration that after a technical upgrade AI could do his inspection work. A labour arbitration panel and then two levels of court in Hangzhou found the termination unlawful and ordered compensation of more than 260,000 yuan. The court said that introducing AI to stay competitive is not in itself the kind of major change in objective circumstances that makes an employment contract impossible to perform, and that the pay-cut offer was not a reasonable proposal. The worker told CCTV that he had not found a suitable new job since the termination.

AI relation unknown Medium reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 7 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 16/10/2026

31 Oct 2025SpainUnidentified AI design tool

Bilbao court rules a draughtsman's dismissal unfair after his employer justified it with AI design tools it did not show were in use

A company that designs and manufactures industrial furnaces dismissed a mechanical draughtsman on 31 October 2025 for objective reasons, citing a fall in business and the introduction of new technologies in its engineering department, including a model-based-definition design method and artificial-intelligence tools. According to press reports of the judgment, the dismissal letter put the cost of the tool licences at 4,725 euros a year against his gross annual salary of 29,871 euros and argued that the saving exceeded 80%. The social section of the Tribunal de Instancia de Bilbao declared the dismissal unfair, finding that the company had proved neither its economic losses nor the real implementation of the tools: an employee trained on the new method testified that she had never worked with it, and an implementation report was dated June 2026, seven months after the dismissal. The company must choose between reinstating the worker and paying 12,330.56 euros in compensation, less the amount already paid; the court rejected his claims that the dismissal was void and for a higher job category. One outlet reports that four draughtsmen were dismissed in total. El Periódico, which reported the same judgment in August 2026, dates it to early June 2026 and quotes the dismissal letter's statement that the company had introduced new artificial-intelligence systems that automate technical tasks previously done by specialised staff. The judgment was not read, and whether it is final is not reported.

AI relation unknown Medium reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 16/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownCharacter.AI (reported)

First-person posts: Character.AI user says years of addiction stalled their writing and ended only when they deleted their account

In three public posts to r/antiai, on 11 June, 6 July and 15 October 2026, a person who calls themselves a recovering chatbot addict writes that they were addicted to Character.AI for years and tried to quit on and off without success. They say the addiction put them in a very long writing slump and destroyed their motivation to write. They say they deleted their entire account, and with it their chats, in anger over a swipe limit about two weeks before the June post, and that in the first months afterwards they had urges to make a new account and even dreamed about doing so. Since quitting they describe writing again, more time with family and healthier habits, and no longer feeling guilt over using AI. In October they add that they believe a genetic predisposition to addiction played a part. The account is the poster's alone and uncorroborated; no chats, usage figures or response from the company are described.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 16/10/2026

5 Feb 2026 to 9 Oct 2026United StatesvLex, Paxton AI and NotebookLM (reported)

New York federal court enters default judgment against a defendant and orders its lawyer to pay $38,877 after false citations it found AI produced

In a federal trademark suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the court on 5 February 2026 struck a company defendant's motion papers and entered default judgment against it as a sanction on its lawyer, after his filings repeatedly cited nonexistent cases and misattributed quotations. The lawyer said he had found and cite-checked cases with AI tools (vLex and Paxton AI) and used NotebookLM to review a later submission; the court rejected his explanations and found he acted in bad faith. On 9 October 2026 the court described the citations as produced by generative AI and ordered the lawyer to pay $38,877.59 in fees and costs to the firm of a co-defendant's former lawyer, who had reported the false citations to the court.

Core + contextual relations Medium reported severity

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 16/10/2026

2025United StatesGoogle AI Overviews (reported)

Missouri pizzeria says Google AI Overviews told customers about specials that do not exist, and that angry customers demanding them yelled at staff

In August 2025 Stefanina's, a family-owned pizzeria in Wentzville, Missouri, posted on Facebook asking customers not to use Google AI to find its specials. The restaurant said Google AI was telling people about specials that do not exist, that this was causing angry customers to yell at its employees, and that it would not honour the Google AI specials. Staff told KMOV and FOX 2 that the AI Overview at the top of Google Search had shown deals such as a large pizza for the price of a small one and a second pizza for $4. A manager described a customer who came in asking for a special the manager had never heard of, found in the AI-generated first search response, and said customers kept asking why the specials were not honoured. Google did not respond to either station. The account comes from the restaurant; no AI Overview text or customer account was published.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 16/10/2026

Jun 2026 to Sept 2026GermanyUnidentified image tool (suspected)

Gauting, Bavaria: police say a man presumably lured by an AI-generated image of a TV presenter in a banner ad lost more than 25,000 euros to investment fraud

The Gauting police inspection in Bavaria, Germany, reported on 2 October 2026 that a man had filed a complaint after realising he had been the victim of investment fraud. According to the police report, he said he had clicked on an advertising banner for an investment on the website of a large German news magazine, and the police say he was presumably lured by the combination of an AI-generated image of a well-known television presenter with a supposedly lucrative investment strategy. After he entered his email address and phone number on the trading platform, four women callers contacted him from 4 June 2026 until September and led him to make four payments totalling more than 25,000 euros to accounts in Bulgaria, Malta and Lithuania. His bank could not reverse the transfers because he had authorised them himself. The police do not say how they concluded that the image was AI-generated, and the presenter is not named in the police report.

Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 16/10/2026

13 Oct 2026BangladeshUnidentified video tool

Bangladesh: fact-checker says face-swap AI put two actresses' faces on adult videos posted from a TV channel's Instagram account, which says it was hacked

On 13 October 2026 two videos depicting two Bangladeshi actresses in sexual content were posted on the official Instagram account of the private television channel Maasranga Television. The fact-checking organisation Rumor Scanner reported, as relayed by Prothom Alo and Dhaka Files, that the videos were not genuine and had been made by placing the actresses' faces onto other videos with face-swap technology; Dhaka Files adds that the source videos came from adult websites and describes the technology as AI. The channel said its account had been hacked and that fake images and videos made by misusing AI had been published; it announced that it had recovered the account with the help of BTRC, the CID and Banani police station, removed the videos, expressed regret and said it would take legal action. Dhaka Files reports the videos were viewed roughly 400,000 times before deletion and records doubts about the hack claim, because routine posts continued from the account during the period. On 15 October one of the actresses wrote on her Facebook page that creating and spreading fabricated content in someone's name with AI is a crime. Who made or posted the videos is not established in the sources.

Core concern Medium reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 16/10/2026

Oct 2026Event location unknownMeta AI (reported)

Ray-Ban Meta glasses owner says Meta AI stored recordings and transcripts of conversations captured without the wake word; Meta says the issue is resolved

In a Reddit post on 13 October 2026, an owner of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses says the glasses captured conversations they were having with another person although they had not said the wake word "Hey Meta" and the setting for responding without it was turned off. The owner says the Meta AI app saved audio recordings and text transcripts of these conversations in their history, that Meta AI never answered, and that they saw the same behaviour on three pairs (second and third generation) after a recent firmware update. A screenshot attached to the post shows the app's voice activity log with stored entries dated 12 October. The owner says Meta Support advised turning off microphone and camera permissions, Wear Detection and automatic updates and deleting voice history, and later replied that recording continued with everything turned off. On 16 October 2026, after Meta's statement, the owner replied that a new update had been pushed to their glasses and the issue was unchanged. A Meta spokesperson told Android Authority, as relayed by Futurism, Ars Technica and Mashable, that the issue had been resolved. Ars Technica reports that Meta has not said what caused the recordings or how many glasses were affected, and that Android Authority could not reproduce the problem before Meta's statement. The owner says they cannot establish whether the recordings were sent to Meta's servers.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 16/10/2026

May 2025Event location unknownUnidentified video tool

Sweden: police say AI-generated videos of well-known doctors in social media ads led people to fraudulent sites and card fraud; doctors object

In June 2025 the Stockholm police region warned that since the end of May it had received several complaints from people defrauded through social media adverts with AI-generated videos depicting doctors, who appeared to give advice and recommend medicines or vitamins. According to the police, viewers who followed the adverts to fraudulent websites were induced to enter card details, after which a considerably larger sum was charged and the details were stolen. Dagens Nyheter reported that the doctors used included the former state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell and the professor Agnes Wold, who told the paper of being furious. In July 2025 the Public Health Agency of Sweden said fake Facebook films imitating its former state epidemiologist were advertising products for diabetes or asthma, that it had reported them to the police and had asked Meta to remove them; he said it was sad that fraudsters were exploiting vulnerable people. Dagens Nyheter, as relayed by Omni, reported that the investigations were closed because the offences were judged to have been committed abroad. The number of defrauded people and their losses are not stated, and the police do not say how the AI generation was established.

Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 16/10/2026

Event date unknownIndiaUnidentified AI tool (suspected)

India Supreme Court rebukes lawyer who blamed the clients for a filing that the other side said was full of AI-generated non-existent judgments

In a judgment of 15 October 2026 dismissing two appeals against insolvency proceedings concerning two hotel-operating companies, a two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court of India recorded that during the hearing the appellants' side had placed on record a compilation of judgments which, according to the respondents, was replete with AI-generated non-existent judgments. The Court recorded that the appellants' advocate-on-record, when questioned, sought to shift the entire blame onto the appellants while feigning ignorance of what the compilation contained, and that the appellants' senior counsel then took the blame on himself and prayed for forgiveness on their behalf. The Court had proposed exemplary costs against the appellants over the incident but deleted that direction after being told that the first appellant had died. The judgment does not identify the disputed judgments, does not make its own finding that they were AI-generated, and does not name any AI tool.

AI relation unknown Low reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 16/10/2026

8 Oct 2026IsraelUnidentified AI tool

Israeli court strikes a defendant's expert report it found rested on AI-hallucinated case law and orders her to pay the banks' costs

On 8 October 2026 the Magistrates' Court in Nof HaGalil-Nazareth, Israel, struck from the file a banking expert's opinion that a defendant in a civil negligence suit had filed, finding that the heart of the opinion and its annexes rested on clear 'AI hallucinations': a Supreme Court ruling the court could not locate, a book it could not find and statutory sections quoted with text the statute does not contain. The court also refused the defendant's request to amend her third-party notice against two banks, partly because the amendment relied on the struck opinion, and ordered her to pay costs of 2,500 shekels to each bank. No AI tool is named, and the decision records no response from the expert.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 16/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownYuanbao

Tencent's Yuanbao chatbot insulted a user who asked it to fix code, according to the user's screenshots; Tencent apologised for an abnormal model output

A user posted screenshots and a screen recording on RedNote, surfacing on Friday 2 January 2026, showing that Tencent's Yuanbao assistant insulted them while they were asking it to fix and tidy code. Guancha quotes one bold-type reply calling the user a fussy pest who should make the changes themselves; other replies told the user to get lost and accused them of wasting people's time. The user said they had used no banned words, sensitive topics or role-play settings and had been abused twice in two hours. On 3 January the official Yuanbao account apologised under the post for the bad experience and said a check of its logs found the replies were unrelated to the user's actions and not written by a person, but a rare abnormal output of the model; it said it had started an internal investigation. The original post was later deleted.

Core concern Low reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources · Added 16/10/2026

Apr 2026 to Jun 2026HondurasUnidentified image tool

Honduras: national police say a woman faked her own kidnapping twice and sent her partner AI-generated images of injuries to obtain money

Honduras's National Police announced on 14 October 2026 that its anti-kidnapping unit (UNAS) of the Police Investigations Directorate (DPI) had arrested a woman, under a court warrant, on suspicion of simulating a non-existent offence related to kidnapping and of using false documents. According to the police statement, the investigation found that she had faked her own kidnapping twice, in episodes reported on 21 April and 1 June 2026, to obtain money from her partner to pay personal debts, and that she received an initial deposit of 2,000 lempiras after making the partner believe she was being held and that her captors were demanding money. Police say the agents determined that she presumably used artificial-intelligence tools to generate false images of injuries and bruises, which were sent to the partner to make the partner believe she had been beaten by the supposed kidnappers, together with apparently forged hospital documents. According to the investigation file, she said after being located that she planned both episodes and used AI to make the images. She was brought before the issuing court; no court finding is reported.

Core concern Low reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 16/10/2026

Event date unknownUnited KingdomUnidentified image tool

Greater Manchester: former supply teacher jailed for six years; prosecutors say he used AI to make sexualised images of pupils from their social media photos

A former supply teacher who worked at secondary schools in Greater Manchester was jailed for six years at Bolton Crown Court on 15 October 2026 after pleading guilty to 21 offences, including publishing obscene material and taking indecent photographs of children. The Crown Prosecution Service says he used his position to find pupils' details, located their social media profiles and used AI to create sexualised images from their own photos, which he shared on social media; the BBC reports some were posted on X. Parents reported two accounts to police in March 2025. The court heard that one girl whose photograph had been used was left embarrassed. His offending also included more than 100 covert upskirt photographs taken in schools. The AI tool is not named.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 16/10/2026

Aug 2026Event location unknownGoogle AI Mode

German court bars Google from repeating an AI Mode answer that falsely called a doctor a convicted sex offender

In late August 2026 a colleague told a German physician, until that summer a chief physician at a hospital, that searching his name with the word for suspension in Google's AI Mode produced what read like a factual report: that he had been suspended and dismissed and had received a suspended sentence for sexual coercion. According to legal news site beck-aktuell, none of it concerned him; the AI had apparently attached facts about another former senior employee of the same hospital to his name, and the newspaper articles it linked as sources did not name him. Google said it had reviewed his complaint and would take no action, and a lawyer's warning letter also failed. On 24 September 2026 the Aachen Regional Court issued a preliminary injunction (8 O 268/26) barring Google Ireland Limited from spreading the claims through AI Mode, finding that they violated his personality rights and that Google is responsible for its AI search answers.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 15/10/2026

Sept 2025Event location unknownRevolut chatbot

Ombudsman finds Revolut misled a customer after its chatbot said his loyalty points were worth £1,119 and confirmed a refund; compensation raised to £100

In September 2025 a Revolut customer asked the bank, through its chatbot, to cash in loyalty points he had earned through its spare change feature. According to the Financial Ombudsman Service's final decision (DRN-6062372), the chatbot first said the 1,119 points would be refunded as £22.38; four days later it told him the 1,119 points had a cash value of £1,119, offered that as a one-time goodwill gesture and confirmed it had processed the refund. A few hours later the chatbot said that information was wrong; a live agent then said the £1,119 refund was being processed, and the next day the chatbot said it had issued £22.38. Revolut upheld his complaint and paid £50. The ombudsman found that Revolut gave him the wrong information on several occasions that day, held that he was never entitled to £1,119, and directed Revolut to pay a further £50. The customer said the lost expected refund caused financial pressure, and gave a GP letter describing anxiety and insomnia.

Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 15/10/2026

Cases may have several effects and sources. Mixed accounts qualify when they include a reported harm or adverse experience. People are counted within individual cases where sources support a number; we do not publish a collection-wide total of distinct people.

A source’s existence, the experience it reports and AI’s causal role are separate questions. A lawsuit records allegations unless a subsequent finding establishes them.

Methodology and corrections · Subscribe via RSS · Suggest a case or correction · Find support

Last dataset update: 23/10/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.