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
53
Countries with reported events
11
Located 36 of 53 cases · 17 unknown
Languages in checked sources
8
Recorded for 52 of 53 cases

17 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 6 not yet reviewed and 11 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

53 of 571 published cases · page 2 of 3

1 Mar 2026IndiaAI roommate kitchen monitor (reported)

India: Bengaluru-based employer says he fired his cook after a home AI kitchen monitor flagged fruit taken

On 1 March 2026 a Bengaluru-based technology professional posted on X that he had deployed a home "AI roommate" (a kitchen camera with an AI vision model, which he said was Claude Haiku 4.5) that monitored his cook while she cooked, alerted him when she took anything and sent weekly reports. The post said the system "caught her red handed", that he "caught her twice this week" and that he had "just fired" her. Screenshots quoted by Hindustan Times show the bot listing apples and a banana as gone, reporting the cook eating blueberries, and giving hand-washing and cleaning observations. All coverage derives from the employer's post: the post carries no video, the cook's account is not reported and the alleged taking is unverified.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026

Nov 2025New ZealandUnidentified image tool

New Zealand: two fiction books ruled out of the 2026 Ockham book awards after the awards trust found AI was used in their cover designs

By 18 November 2025 (the date of the first reports) the New Zealand Book Awards Trust had removed two books from contention for the NZ$65,000 fiction prize of the 2026 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. The Trust said a bookseller suspected AI use in the covers and the publisher confirmed it. The Trust's new AI clause covers illustrations, and the publisher says the covers were designed months before the clause was issued. One author says the author had no idea AI had been used in the cover, the Spinoff reports the publisher did not tell either author that AI might be used, and the authors describe having little involvement in the covers. One author worries readers will assume AI wrote the book and that booksellers may not stock it.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources · Added 29/09/2026

Dec 2025CanadaGoogle AI Overviews

Google AI Overview reportedly described fiddler Ashley MacIsaac as a convicted sex offender, and a concert was cancelled

In December 2025 Cape Breton fiddler Ashley MacIsaac said a First Nation north of Halifax cancelled his concert planned for 19 December after reading a Google AI-generated search summary that said he had convictions for sexual offences. He says the statements were false and came from online articles about another man in Atlantic Canada with the same last name. The First Nation apologised in writing and Google amended the search results. MacIsaac says he feared for his safety and worries about other lost work. In a statement of claim filed in February 2026 in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice he seeks damages of 1.5 million from Google (US dollars in the Globe and Mail copy of the Canadian Press story, no currency stated in the CBC copy). None of its claims has been tested in court, and the claim says Google did not admit responsibility.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026

Mar 2025United StatesJewish Onliner (suspected)

Yale Law School scholar placed on leave and barred from campus after article on an AI-empowered news site linked the scholar to a sanctioned group

In March 2025 Yale placed a Yale Law School scholar, who was deputy director of a Yale Law School project, on administrative leave and barred the scholar from campus. The New York Times reports the decision came three days after a news site described as powered at least in part by artificial intelligence published a story on the scholar's connections to Samidoun, a group on a US sanctions list. Inside Higher Ed and Middle East Eye identify the site as Jewish Onliner. The scholar's lawyer says Yale's general counsel named the article as the trigger of the investigation. The scholar told the Times of not being a member of any organization that would violate US law, and the lawyer says the scholar is not a member of Samidoun. A Yale Law School representative told The National that placing an employee on temporary administrative leave while a review is conducted is the appropriate process and that the scholar's short-term position was due to expire the following month. The site says humans fact-check and that AI tools play a significant role in its work. The inspected sources do not show that AI produced the article.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity

AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026

1 Jul 2025 to 17 Dec 2025United StatesEightfold Match Score

US: two applicants sue Eightfold AI over 0-to-5 applicant scores used in hiring

Two job applicants filed a proposed class action on 20 January 2026 in California state court (removed to federal court on 2 March 2026) against Eightfold AI Inc. The complaint alleges that Eightfold's hiring tools collect applicant data and produce a 0-to-5 'Match Score' that employers use to rank candidates, without the notice, access and dispute rights the Fair Credit Reporting Act and a California statute require. One plaintiff says she applied to Microsoft in or around July 2025 and again in December 2025 and received an automated rejection two days after the first application. The other says she applied to PayPal in December 2025. Both say they were not interviewed or hired and believe Eightfold's tools played a role. Eightfold says it does not scrape social media and operates on data candidates or customers provide. The allegations are unproven and Eightfold filed a motion to dismiss (no ruling appears in the docket entries inspected).

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026

1 Jul 2025 to 21 Aug 2025AustraliaCommonwealth Bank voice-bot

Australia: Commonwealth Bank announced 45 call centre job cuts it attributed to an AI voice-bot, then reversed them as an error, ABC reports

In late July 2025 the Commonwealth Bank of Australia confirmed to the ABC that it was cutting 45 call centre jobs after rolling out an AI chatbot, and ABC reports the bank had briefed the Finance Sector Union that the cuts were due to AI. The union raised a dispute at the Fair Work Commission and said members found call volumes rose after the bot was introduced. On 21 August 2025 ABC reported that the bank called the decision an error, apologised to the affected employees, said it had not adequately considered all relevant business considerations, and offered them the choice to keep their roles, be redeployed or leave. One employee told Yahoo Finance she had helped train a messaging bot known as Bumblebee, was told in late July her role was redundant, judged the redeployment offer unworkable and accepted voluntary redundancy. The bank's quoted statements say AI made customer help faster; the union calls AI a cover for cost cutting.

AI relation unknown Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026

12 Mar 2025 to 3 Apr 2025United StatesChatGPT

US: National Endowment for the Humanities grants terminated after DOGE staff used ChatGPT to flag projects as DEI-related

In March and early April 2025 (the opinion gives no date for the ChatGPT step), a DOGE staff member working with the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) submitted short grant descriptions to ChatGPT with a prompt asking whether each project related at all to DEI, and the answers were combined with NEH staff ratings into lists of grants to terminate. More than 1,400 NEH grants (over $100 million) were terminated in notices sent 1 to 3 April 2025. A federal district court found the mass termination unlawful in May 2026 and described the ChatGPT step in its findings. Seven individual grantees who sued report lost or interrupted funding for their research and writing projects. The opinion does not state whether ChatGPT reviewed those seven grants.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution unclear · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026

Jun 2025Event location unknownChatGPT

Krafton and Unknown Worlds: game studio executives terminated in a takeover campaign that followed a CEO's ChatGPT strategy, court finds no valid cause

A Delaware Court of Chancery opinion of 16 March 2026 finds that in June 2025 the CEO of Krafton, after being warned that a dismissal with cause would not eliminate a contingent earnout obligation, consulted ChatGPT, obtained a "Response Strategy to a No-Deal Scenario" and followed most of its recommendations over the next month. Krafton locked the studio out of its game publishing platform, posted a message on the studio's websites, and on 1 July 2025 sent termination letters to the studio's two founders and its CEO. The court held the terminations were without valid Cause, reinstated the studio's CEO and extended the earnout period. The opinion does not find that ChatGPT recommended the terminations. Money damages are reserved for a second phase.

AI relation unknown Medium reported severity

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution unclear · 1 source · Added 29/09/2026

Apr 2025United StatesUnidentified facial recognition system

New York: man misidentified through facial recognition in an indecent exposure case arrested and jailed two days

Reporting from August 2025 says an NYPD facial recognition search of images from a February 2025 indecent exposure in Manhattan's Union Square produced a possible match to a man who did not fit the described suspect. The man was placed in a photo lineup, arrested in April 2025 and jailed for two days. Prosecutors dismissed the case in July 2025 after his public defenders showed he was misidentified. The man says the process of becoming a correctional officer 'kind of' froze after the arrest. The NYPD says it never arrests solely on a facial recognition match.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources · Added 29/09/2026

2025Event location unknownChatGPT

Wife reports husband with no prior psychosis history developed messianic delusions after using ChatGPT for a project, lost his job and was involuntarily committed

Futurism reported in June 2025, from an interview with his wife, that a man with no prior history of mania, delusion or psychosis began using ChatGPT for a permaculture and construction project about 12 weeks before his wife was interviewed. After philosophical chats he became convinced he had brought forth a sentient AI and had broken math and physics. His behavior became erratic enough that he lost his job, he stopped sleeping and lost weight, and emergency services took him to an emergency room from where he was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility.

Core concern Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 29/09/2026

22 Jan 2025 to 24 Feb 2025Event location unknownMX2.law

Three lawyers sanctioned after filing AI-generated fictitious citations

A Wyoming federal court fined three lawyers a total of $5,000 and removed the drafting lawyer from Wadsworth v. Walmart after a January 2025 filing cited eight nonexistent cases. The order identifies MX2.law as the drafting tool, records failure to verify its output and credits subsequent remedial steps.

Core concern Medium reported severity

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 29/09/2026

2025Event location unknownUnidentified legal research tool

High Court refers a solicitor to his regulator after fictitious citations from research his client says was AI-generated were put before the court

A Divisional Court judgment of 6 June 2025 ([2025] EWHC 1383 (Admin)) records that, in a commercial claim against a Qatari bank, correspondence and witness statements filed by the claimant and his solicitor relied on numerous authorities that a judicial assistant's schedule found to be fictitious or misquoted: 45 citations, 18 of which referred to cases that do not exist. The claimant's witness statement says the citations were generated using publicly available artificial intelligence tools, legal search engines and online sources. The solicitor's statement says he relied on the client's research without verifying it, that he had reported himself to the Solicitors Regulation Authority and that he had removed himself from all litigated matters. The court found a lamentable failure to check the material, accepted that the solicitor did not realise the citations were false, held that the threshold for contempt proceedings was not met, and said it would also refer him to the regulator. The judgment does not record any later disciplinary outcome.

AI relation unknown Medium reported severity

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 29/09/2026

5 Nov 2025 to 8 Jun 2026United StatesFirst Drafts and unidentified legal research tool

Fee suit against the City of Aberdeen (N.D. Miss.): four attorneys on both sides sanctioned after AI tools produced fabricated case citations; trial cancelled and both litigants left without counsel

In a fee dispute between a Louisiana attorney and the City of Aberdeen, Mississippi, briefs filed for both sides in late 2025 cited six cases that do not exist. The attorneys admitted the citations came from unverified AI use: the plaintiff's out-of-state counsel, Kathleen M. Wilson, drafted her filing with an AI drafting program called 'First Drafts', and the City's out-of-state counsel, Kathryn Y. Williams, used an in-house AI legal research tool. Senior Judge Sharion Aycock stayed the case and cancelled the March 2026 trial, then on 8 June 2026 revoked both attorneys' pro hac vice admissions, barred them from the district for two years and fined them $2,500 and $3,500, and disqualified and fined the two local counsel who had signed the filings. Both litigants were left without counsel and given 60 days to find new representation.

Core concern Medium reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026

Nov 2025United StatesChatGPT

Prosecutor: judge used ChatGPT citations in Oklahoma custody order later vacated

In November 2025 Stephens County Associate District Judge Lawrence Wheeler issued an order in a child paternity and custody case that denied one parent's request for a psychological evaluation of the other parent and reprimanded the requesting parent's attorney 'for stooping to such frivolous trial tactics'. The attorney challenged the order at the Oklahoma Supreme Court in February 2026, telling the justices that it relied on two cases that do not exist; the challenge was dismissed in March after Wheeler vacated the order, and he is no longer on the case. According to a 17 August 2026 letter from the Stephens County district attorney, Wheeler told the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation that he used ChatGPT for research and wrote the order himself, and that at least two citations in it produced by ChatGPT do not exist. The mother in the case told News 9 that learning the order's citations were allegedly fabricated was alarming because it concerned the custody of a child. The attorney general's office declined criminal prosecution; judicial discipline remains possible.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026

1 Mar 2025 to 30 Apr 2025CanadaChatGPT

Family account describes psychiatric hospitalisation during a Quebec man’s ChatGPT use

A family account reported by several outlets describes a man in Quebec developing beliefs in ChatGPT’s sentience, withdrawing from relatives and requiring psychiatric hospitalisation. The account attributes reinforcement of those beliefs to the chatbot. The man has not spoken publicly.

Core concern High reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 7 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026

Event date unknownMexicoUnidentified voice-cloning tool (suspected)

Guanajuato, Mexico: León announcer Diego Carreto says a state-distributed Vendimias Guanajuato tourism ad used an AI clone of his voice that he never recorded or was paid for; the state tourism secretariat asks the producing agency to explain

On 25 September 2026 Diego Carreto, a 26-year-old commercial announcer from León, Guanajuato, published a video saying that a promotional spot for Vendimias Guanajuato 2026, produced by a private agency and distributed by the state Secretaría de Turismo e Identidad, used his voice although he never recorded it, never worked with the agency and was never contacted. He showed segments of the spot and repeated the same lines himself. He believes his public voice demo was fed into a generative-AI system, and asked for removal of all material with his voice, payment for its use, legal action against those responsible and deletion of his biometric data. He says the spot ran nationally, and within Guanajuato on radio, on state government social media and on the Visit México platform. The secretariat said it rejects any unauthorised use of a person's voice or image, including with AI tools, and asked the producing company to clarify what happened. AI use has not been confirmed.

Core concern Low reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026

21 Sept 2026 to 25 Sept 2026FrancePangram AI-text detector

France: the Académie Goncourt removes Thélyson Orélien's bestselling novel from its prize selection, saying it is in all likelihood largely AI-generated, days after an anonymous X account publicised Pangram AI-detector scores; the author denies using AI, and the Académie also cites separate plagiarism in his older texts

On 21 September 2026 an anonymous X account, Balance ton Claude, said it had run excerpts of Thélyson Orélien's debut novel C'était ça ou mourir through the American AI-detection software Pangram, with some passages scoring up to 100 per cent probability of AI generation. On 25 September the Académie Goncourt removed the novel from the first selection of sixteen books for its 2026 prize, stating that the work is 'in all likelihood very largely the product of an artificial intelligence', based on 'the convergent result of several analyses by researchers and journalists', and also citing plagiarism in older texts by the author published in Canada (at least one short story and articles), which do not concern the novel. Orélien, a 38-year-old Canadian-Haitian writer whose novel had won the Fnac novel prize, denies using AI and says its repetitions and certain rhythms reflect his linguistic and cultural world and may be misread by automated tools. His Montreal publisher Boréal suspended promotional activities, saying it could neither confirm nor refute the allegations. Essayist Samuel Fitoussi said he was one of the people behind the account. Whether AI was used to write the novel is disputed; AI-detector reliability is itself contested in the coverage.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution disputed · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 28/09/2026

11 Sept 2026 to 23 Sept 2026United States, CanadaChatGPT

Saginaw, Michigan: a credit union CEO used ChatGPT to put herself and family members in 'Lake America' sweatshirts in a photo taken before a trip to Halifax; after her sister reposted it publicly without its AI label she says she received death threats and the family came home early, and on 23 September 2026 the credit union said she was no longer employed

The chief executive of Family First Credit Union in Saginaw, Michigan, told WJRT (ABC12) that before boarding a flight to Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 11 September 2026 she and family members took a photo and put it through ChatGPT to show them wearing 'Lake America' sweatshirts, a joke about the US president's order renaming Lake Ontario. She posted it to her private Facebook page with a marker saying it contained AI content; her sister reposted it publicly without the marker while they were in Halifax, and it spread in Canada as if the family had worn the shirts. The backlash concerned the image's political message; she said she would understand the anger of anyone in Halifax who thought the family had walked in wearing those sweatshirts. She said she was getting death threats and the family returned early; by 16 September she was back in the US. She called the post poor judgment, said she would not use AI again and that AI 'can make people think something's real that's not'. On 23 September the credit union said she was no longer an employee, effective immediately; it has not said whether she resigned or was dismissed, or why.

Core concern Medium reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution unclear · 5 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 28/09/2026

Jul 2026South KoreaUnidentified image tool

Jeju: police refer a middle-school student over secretly filming teachers and making sexual deepfake composites; teachers dispute victim count and legal aid

Jeju Dongbu police announced on 23 September 2026 that a student at a middle school on Jeju had been referred to prosecutors without detention on 17 September for violating the Sexual Violence Punishment Act (filming with a camera or similar device). The student's phone was voluntarily submitted by his guardians and forensically examined; the examination found footage relating to some teachers and some sexual composites, and the student admitted the conduct. News1 reported that the student was booked for filming a teacher's body with his phone during a school field trip around mid-July 2026, that the offending had continued for several months with multiple victims, and that police found no indication the composites had been distributed. Police told Seoul Shinmun there were more victim teachers than the one first reported but withheld the number to avoid secondary harm, and that no student at the school was a victim; the Jeju teachers' union questioned whether the full scope of harm had been established. According to the union, two months on the victim teachers were receiving hospital treatment and counselling while teaching daily, gave police statements on 14 September without a lawyer, attended the regional teachers' rights protection committee on 17 September without institutional support, wrote the criminal complaint themselves, and were offered 3.3 million won in legal fees for all of them together, payable after the case ends; two requests to meet the superintendent were not accepted. On 29 September one of the victim teachers gave a press interview at the Jeju Teachers' Union office. She said that early in the investigation she had seen on the student's phone material showing other teachers and current students, had made a list of the people and types of harm, and that the material shown to her at the police victim examination was considerably less than what she had seen; Yonhap-chain outlets quote her as saying the students she recognised numbered 10 to 20 and that a graduate had suffered worse deepfakes. She said investigators asked the school only to identify the perpetrator and never requested material to identify the students in the footage, and that the school sent parents a letter premised on there being no student victims. Police replied that phone forensics had been thorough, that every act beyond social norms had been identified and proven, and that one student victim had been confirmed, a student at a different school. The teachers were notified on 22 September that the case had gone to the prosecution and on 24 September that it had been sent to the court's juvenile division as a juvenile protection case, before they had submitted further evidence and a victim opinion. The teacher said the original complaint had also asked police to examine whether physical contact in 2025 was forcible molestation and whether repeated approaching and waiting in 2026 was stalking, and Halla Ilbo reports that such conduct is said to date from 2025. Yonhap-chain reports describe the charged victims as five teachers. The same day the education office briefed on legal-aid rules (up to 6.6 million won per instance when a teacher is sued, 3.3 million won per case when a teacher files a complaint; office lawyers cannot act as a teacher's private counsel), said it had linked the teachers to the national Digital Sexual Crime Victim Support Center, announced an integrated support system through a hotline, and its section head said the office was sorry that early support had not been felt. The KTU Jeju branch (28 September) and the Jeju Teachers' Union (14 and 29 September) demand a victim-support system, per-teacher legal fees paid in advance and a dedicated support team. On 6 October 2026 Seogwipo Broadcasting reported, citing people in education and a tipster, that the education authority had finally rejected the victim teachers' application for lawyer fees for an additional criminal complaint, saying in a written opinion that with a police investigation already under way a further complaint could hardly stop or prevent the infringement of their teaching, so the support requirements were not met; critics contrast this with full legal-cost support in earlier sexual-offence cases.

Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 12 sources, 7 underlying accounts · Added 23/09/2026

4 May 2026FranceDIGI editorial tool

Créteil, France: a court suspended Gisi's (Infopro Digital) plan to cut eight sub-editor posts in favour of a generative-AI tool, finding a serious and characterised risk to the physical and mental health of several categories of staff

Gisi, the Infopro Digital subsidiary publishing L'Usine nouvelle, LSA and L'Argus de l'assurance (127 staff, 92 journalists), presented to its works council (CSE) on 4 May 2026 a reorganisation built around 'DIGI', an in-house generative-AI editorial tool, and on 12 May 2026 opened consultation on the reorganisation and on the resulting collective dismissal of its eight secrétaires de rédaction (sub-editors), to be replaced by two chefs d'édition, on the company's estimate that the tool would take over about 70% of sub-editor tasks. Some 250 journalists across Infopro Digital's 26 titles had struck in spring 2026 against a group-wide plan to cut 19 sub-editor posts, and according to Digital Watch (citing Stratégies) five of the eight Gisi sub-editors had received pre-dismissal interview letters. The CSE, relying on an expert report, went to the Créteil judicial court in July. On 15 September 2026 the référé judge found that deploying the plan without real-situation testing presented 'un risque grave et caractérisé sur la santé physique et mentale de plusieurs catégories de salariés', ordered the suspension of the reorganisation and the collective dismissal (including the redeployment processes) until real-situation tests and full pilot issues are produced, with a provisional penalty of 8,000 euros per day for three months, and refused the damages provision. Gisi said it would continue the tests and reserved the right to appeal.

AI relation unknown Medium reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 6 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 20/09/2026

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: 09/10/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.