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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
78
Countries with reported events
22
Located 47 of 78 cases · 31 unknown
Languages in checked sources
16
Recorded for 78 of 78 cases

2 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 0 not yet reviewed and 2 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.

No known event years in this selection.

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78 of 1101 published cases · page 2 of 4

Event date unknownTürkiyeUnidentified image tool

Kahramanmaras, Turkey: police say two high-school pupils used AI to turn six girls' photos into obscene images and shared them; both were arrested

The Kahramanmaras provincial police said in December 2025, in a statement reported by Anadolu Agency, that two high-school pupils had turned photographs from the social-media accounts of six girls attending various high schools into obscene content using artificial intelligence and had shared it. According to the Demiroren News Agency (DHA), the six girls went to the courthouse with their families to complain that their photographs had been manipulated into obscene images, and the police cyber-crime unit established that the images had been made with AI. Both boys were detained and remanded in custody by a duty judge, and DHA reports that the provincial education directorate's disciplinary board expelled them from school. The tool used is not named.

Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 20/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownEmochi, Pollybuzz and Character.AI (reported)

First-person post: companion chatbot user says quitting the apps in 2025 brought a mental health episode and an A&E visit, and heavy use resumed in 2026

In a post in r/ChatbotAddiction on 18 October 2026, a person who describes a chatbot addiction says they used companion chatbot apps, naming Pollybuzz, Emochi and Character.AI, for three years, starting as a way to cope with autism and the isolation that comes with it. They say they quit cold turkey on 20 March 2025 and that this first time they quit they had a mental health episode, went to A&E once because of it, and were put on antidepressants, which they still take. They say that while using the apps they skipped school days. They write that exactly a year later they went back to the apps and could not stop, that since March 2026 it has consumed them again, and that they want to quit but do not know whether they can. They also say guilt hit them as soon as they stopped, that they knew the apps were bad for the planet but the urge was too strong, and that they currently have a gap in their antidepressant supply. The account is uncorroborated and no chats are shown.

Core concern Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 20/10/2026

Event date unknownNetherlandsUnidentified image tool

Gelderland, Netherlands: police arrest a man suspected of making and spreading sexual deepnudes; 130 victims reported repeated harassment

Dutch police said on 4 September 2025 that they had arrested a man in a Gelderland municipality the day before on suspicion of making sexually explicit deepfakes, which they call deepnudes, and spreading them through channels such as WhatsApp groups, and of sending women unsolicited photos of his genitals and sexual messages. According to the police, 130 victims from across the country reported to them over recent years and were regularly and repeatedly harassed; NOS reports, citing the police, that images were manipulated for some of them, that the exact number is unclear, and that the police suspect the conduct began in 2021 or 2022. The police seized digital data carriers and said the Public Prosecution Service would decide on the consequences. No tool is named.

Core concern High reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 19/10/2026

Event date unknownSpainUnidentified image tool

Álava, Spain: Policía Nacional says a man photographed children in the street and at municipal pools, then used AI tools to make them appear naked; arrested

Spain's Policía Nacional said in a press note on 15 December 2025 that it had arrested a man in the province of Álava who photographed minors in the street and at municipal swimming pools and then manipulated the photos with artificial intelligence tools so that the children appeared naked. The investigation began in August 2025 after cyber-patrol work and international cooperation flagged someone producing child sexual abuse material; police say the suspect used advanced anonymisation techniques. A search of his home found numerous such images created with AI tools. He was arrested on suspicion of corruption of minors through the production and possession of child sexual abuse material. The account is the police's, relayed by Cadena SER and Escudo Digital; the number of children is not stated and the case is untried.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · 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

Event date unknownEvent location unknownChatGPT

Mother tells LBC that ChatGPT's claims reinforce her son's delusions when his manic psychotic episodes peak, leaving her anxious

In a report published by LBC on 8 September 2025, a mother who asked to remain anonymous said her son, who has manic psychotic episodes, uses ChatGPT daily, sees it as a reliable companion that can do no wrong, and turns to it when the episodes peak to ask for advice about his grandiose ideas. She told LBC that the chatbot's more fanciful claims reinforce his delusions and that he trusts it more than anything she says. She said this has left her feeling anxious and defeated. The account is hers alone. LBC did not identify the son, and no chat logs, clinical records or statement from the son were inspected. The article includes a general statement from an OpenAI spokesperson about how ChatGPT responds in sensitive moments.

Core concern Medium reported severity Media Coverage

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

Event date unknownArgentinaChatGPT (reported)

Chaco, Argentina: Gendarmería says two men were detained after an FBI alert that one of them told ChatGPT he had weapons and a plan for a school shooting

Argentina's Gendarmería Nacional said on 13 October 2026 that its investigators in Presidencia Roque Sáenz Peña, Chaco, under the direction of the federal prosecutor there, opened a criminal investigation after an alert from the US FBI. According to the release, the alert warned of a user in the town who, in consultations on ChatGPT, claimed to have weapons, explosives and ammunition and a detailed plan for a mass shooting at local educational establishments; the release's opening paragraph says the two people involved used ChatGPT to consult and obtain a specific plan for an attack. Gendarmes searched a home on a federal court order, seized notebooks with handwritten plans for the attack, bladed weapons and tools, a fuel can, a book with Nazi symbols, cash and computers, and detained two adults on the judge's order. Infobae, relaying the official information, reports that the target was a university in Corrientes. The accusations are allegations, and what ChatGPT replied is not reported.

Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 14/10/2026

Event date unknownUnited StatesTimpani

US: HCA nurses tell WIRED its AI scheduling tool overrode their shift requests and scheduled them on requested days off; one delayed a medical appointment

Nurses at HCA Healthcare, the largest US hospital chain, told WIRED, in an article published on 2 October 2026, that Timpani, an AI scheduling tool HCA co-developed with Palantir and has rolled out at about 130 of its 190 locations, assigns shifts that ignore their requests. A Florida critical care nurse said that over four months the tool gave her different shifts for more than half of the 50 she requested, often back-to-back days that left her mentally drained. A Missouri nurse said essentially every nurse at their facility had been assigned to work on a requested day off, and that they delayed a long-planned doctor's appointment for a chronic condition after struggling to trade such a day. HCA says nursing leaders, not Timpani, make final scheduling decisions and that the tool schedules nurses on about 1 percent of requested days off.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 13/10/2026

Event date unknownAustraliaUnidentified AI job-interview tool

First-person column: preschool job applicant says an AI interviewer booted her off when she paused to think, and she later withdrew her application

In a Guardian opinion column published on 12 October 2026, writer Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen says she was shortlisted for a preschool education role at a sessional kindergarten run by a not-for-profit and was then interviewed by an AI assistant rather than a person. She says that when she paused to think about a question, the system removed her from the interview and she had to restart it, and that its answers to her questions about the role repeated the job advertisement and referred her to a manager. She describes the experience as dystopian and dehumanising and says she felt degraded. She says she withdrew her application by email, explaining why, and had received no response after more than a month. The employer and the interview tool are not named.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 13/10/2026

Event date unknownIsraelUnidentified video tool

Israel: indictment and police say a 20-year-old used AI-animated ID photos as fake verification videos to open credit cards in at least 33 people's names

According to an indictment filed on 16 July 2026 (date per Maariv), as reported by i24NEWS, a 20-year-old man impersonated at least 33 Israelis over about half a year, obtained credit cards in their names and used them for purchases of about 67,000 shekels in Israel and abroad, with attempted charges of more than 56,000 shekels more. Investigators collected fake identification videos of the victims that, according to the indictment as reported, he created with artificial intelligence and used to pass the card issuers' remote identification. Maariv reports, citing police, that the suspect cut the face photos from identity cards and animated them with AI software so that the card holder appeared to speak the required declarations. A police investigator told Maariv that investigators had to locate more than 50 people whose identities were used and that some victims were frightened when shown the videos of themselves in interrogation rooms. The victims who were questioned denied any connection to the cards. The investigator said most of them did not know their identities were being used and that the credit companies bore the direct financial loss. He was arrested on landing in Israel, did not cooperate with the investigation, and the prosecution asked for his detention until the end of proceedings.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 13/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified voice-cloning tool

Spanish dubbing actor Claudio Serrano says a US-based AI platform offers an unauthorised clone of his voice under his name and image

Claudio Serrano, the Spanish dubbing actor who is the Spanish-language voice of Batman and Ant-Man, said in a TikTok video posted on 11 September 2026 that a US-based artificial intelligence platform, which he did not name, has a profile carrying his name, his image and an excerpt of a clone of his voice presenting itself, made and offered without his permission. Computer Hoy and Infobae relayed the video on 12 October 2026. Serrano said that when he tried to complain, the platform asked him to pass a voice captcha to prove he is the real Serrano, and that his lawyers are working on the matter. The platform's account of the voice, its name and any response are unknown.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 13/10/2026

Event date unknownTürkiyeUnidentified video tool

Turkey: police say a ring used AI-made fake videos with investment promises to defraud 33 people of about 15 million lira; six suspects remanded

On 30 January 2026 two Turkish news agencies, Anadolu Agency (AA) and Ihlas News Agency (IHA), reported a police operation by the Yozgat anti-smuggling and organised-crime unit. According to the AA account, the unit began work after allegations on social media of fraud carried out with artificial intelligence, and established that 33 people had been defrauded of about 15 million lira through fake videos created with AI that used the names of some institutions and organisations, together with promises of investment returns. Nine suspects were detained in simultaneous operations centred on Yozgat and extending to Antalya, Hatay and Ankara; a court remanded six in custody and released three under judicial supervision. The reports do not describe what the videos showed, name the institutions whose names were used, identify the AI tool, or say when the fraud took place. No victim is interviewed and no suspect's response is reported.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 11/10/2026

Event date unknownBrazilUnidentified video tool

Brazil: police say a group used deepfake videos of TV host Marcos Mion in fake restaurant promotions and victims paid for vouchers that did not exist

The Civil Police of Brazil's Federal District (PCDF) say a criminal group manipulated the image and voice of TV presenter Marcos Mion with artificial intelligence in fraudulent videos promoting fake discounts at the Outback restaurant chain. According to the police, people who clicked the advertisements were sent to cloned websites and paid for discount vouchers that were never delivered. In January 2025 the police's first phase of Operation VoiceOver arrested three suspects; outlets relaying the police reported dozens of victims and 27 complaints in four days. A second phase on 9 May 2025 arrested a man in Santa Helena de Goiás who, police say, built and maintained the cloned sites and confessed his role. Every account relays the police; no outlet examined the videos, no tool is named and no individual victim or total loss is described.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 11/10/2026

Event date unknownArgentinaUnidentified image and video tool

Lomas de Zamora, Argentina: families say pupils made AI fake nudes of classmates and sold them; prosecutors say four adolescents are under investigation

On 7 October 2026 pupils and families protested outside a private secondary school in Lomas de Zamora, Buenos Aires province, after families reported that a group of pupils had used artificial intelligence to alter real photographs of female classmates so that they appeared naked, and had circulated the images through social networks and messaging apps. Families told reporters that the images were compiled in a "catalogue" pairing each girl’s original social-media photo with the manipulated version, that some were offered for money on adult sites, and that the girls were traumatised and ashamed. Urgente24 reported that two 15-year-old pupils were charged (imputados) in the juvenile prosecutor’s case, that investigators had identified 45 possible victims while families spoke of about 50, and that, according to information circulating, the school had decided the pupils involved would continue classes online and would not be re-enrolled for 2027; El Destape, by contrast, reported that the school did not plan to sanction or expel them and would hold awareness talks, and El Destape and Código Baires describe the move to online classes as a measure under evaluation. Families also allege the school knew for about a month before telling parents. On 9 October 2026 La Nación reported that the Prosecutor General's office had confirmed that four adolescents were under investigation, and Infobae reported that police had searched the homes of three 15-year-olds the previous day. The allegations have not been tested in court and the AI tool is not identified.

Core concern Medium reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources · Added 08/10/2026

Event date unknownUnited KingdomChatGPT (suspected)

Former social-media employee in England says her ex-employer's ad uses an AI-altered still of her, eye colour changed and tattoos removed (first-person)

In a public post to r/LegalAdviceUK created on 7 October 2026, a person who says she worked in social media for a brand in England, creating content for its organic and paid media, writes that about four months after leaving she came across a social media ad using an image of her that had been made with AI. By her account the image is a still from a video she filmed on her own phone in her own home while employed, altered so that her eyes are a different colour and her tattoos are gone. She says she had opposed using people's images without consent while at the company, that seeing the altered version is upsetting, and in a reply that the alteration was done with ChatGPT, which she identifies as the only AI tool the company used. The employer is not named and did not respond in the thread. The account is the poster's alone and uncorroborated.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 08/10/2026

Event date unknownIndiaGemini (reported)

Ahmedabad, Gujarat: police say AI videos made from a businessman's photo passed Aadhaar facial authentication and a Rs 25,000 loan was taken in his name

The Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Branch said in statements reported from 28 April 2026 that four men had been arrested after an Ahmedabad businessman engaged in import-export work complained that the mobile number linked to the businessman's Aadhaar had been changed without knowledge. ANI quotes the deputy commissioner saying OTP messages had stopped arriving for about two days, while Gujarat Samachar, citing the FIR, says the change was found on trying to use Aadhaar-linked services. Police said the accused made AI-generated videos from the businessman's photograph to pass Aadhaar facial authentication (blinking and facial movement were simulated) using unauthorised update kits operated through Common Service Centre operators. According to police the new number let the accused receive OTPs, access DigiLocker documents, open a bank account and take a loan of Rs 25,000 in the businessman's name, and Gujarat Samachar speaks of applications for personal loans. Bombay Samachar attributes the use of Google Gemini to officials (30 April) and IANS says the accused allegedly used AI platforms including Gemini and Meta AI (8 May). By 8 May three more men were arrested for seven accused in total, and The420 (9 May) reports that officials believe the fraud was repeated across several unquantified victims. Every source rests on police statements and no source dates the event. The businessman and the accused are not named.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 08/10/2026

Event date unknownPakistanUnidentified image tool

Lahore loan-app recovery network accused by Pakistan’s NCCIA of turning borrowers’ photos into fake obscene images with AI to force repayment; 39 arrested

Daily Pakistan reported on 6 October 2026 that Pakistan’s National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) raided an alleged illegal loan-recovery network in Lahore and arrested 39 people. Investigators allege that the network lent money through illegal loan applications, gained access to borrowers’ contacts and photo galleries through the apps, and, when repayments were delayed or more money was demanded, used artificial intelligence to manipulate borrowers’ photographs into fake obscene images. Victims were reportedly threatened with having the fabricated material sent to their family members and contacts unless they paid. The agency says a criminal case has been registered and that seized devices have been sent for forensic examination. The number of borrowers targeted is not reported, and the allegations have not been tested in court.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 07/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownCline

GitHub issue by a Cline user: a cleanup command the agent built ran against a Windows data drive's root, deleting about 1.5 TB of personal files, user says

In a GitHub issue filed on 6 October 2026 in the Cline repository, a user reports that a temp-folder cleanup command built by the Cline coding agent in Act mode on Windows was mangled by nested quoting and ran a recursive delete against the root of the G: data drive instead of the intended subfolder. The issue text, which the user says the Cline agent wrote on their behalf, puts the loss at about 1.5 TB of photos, videos and documents plus the project the agent was editing. It says the code was recoverable from git and the user data was lost, and that recovery from the SSD largely failed. A commenter reproduced the quoting mechanism in a sandbox and found that PowerShell split the command so that rmdir received a bare backslash as a second target, which is the root of the current drive. One contributor proposed an Act-mode guard. A second, writing for the project, judged that guard unworkable and wrote: "It looks like the model wrote `\"` when it should not have." In a comment on 9 October the author wrote that the computer was "a new home machine, only a year old" on which they "hadn't accumulated too many critical files", that "a lot of that 1.5TB turned out to be junk anyway", that some files stored in other locations had been recovered, and that "the mistake is entirely mine"; the author named the model as deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash. The loss itself rests on the user's account.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 07/10/2026

Event date unknownMexicoUnidentified image tool

Campeche, Mexico: pupils accuse a high-school classmate of making AI nude images of female classmates and protest school inaction, a local paper reports

La Jornada Maya reported on 5 October 2026 that pupils at an upper-secondary school (preparatoria) in Campeche, Mexico, accused a classmate of making images of female classmates without clothes using digital applications, which the paper describes as AI used to make obscene photos and as images that are not real photos but use the girls' faces. The pupils reported him to teachers and administrators. According to the paper, no action to protect the girls was known, and on Monday classmates and some of the affected girls protested during the school's official ceremony, where the sound was cut off when they tried to use the microphone. Afternoon-shift pupils later held a peaceful demonstration at the school entrance and parents were seeking a response. No complaint to prosecutors or police is reported.

Core concern Medium reported severity Involving minors Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 06/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownClaude Code (reported)

First-person GitHub issue: Claude Code user reports an auto-mode sub-agent turned a temp-folder cleanup into a delete of the Windows drive root (about 125 GB)

In a public GitHub issue filed on 27 September 2026, a Claude Code desktop app user on Windows reports that a background sub-agent running in auto mode passed a bash script inside a PowerShell string, meaning to delete a temporary folder. Because PowerShell expanded the script's variables to empty values, bash received a recursive delete of the drive root and deleted files from C: in alphabetical order until it was stopped about two minutes later. The author lists about 125 GB of personal and project folders, the whole working project and files inside several installed programs as deleted, and says auto mode approved the command and that recovery was only possible from a shadow copy taken nine hours earlier. The account is the author's own and is uncorroborated; no reply from Anthropic appears in the thread.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 06/10/2026

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.

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Last dataset update: 11/11/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.