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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
37
Countries with reported events
2
Located 2 of 37 cases · 35 unknown
Languages in checked sources
3
Recorded for 37 of 37 cases

4 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 0 not yet reviewed and 4 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 MediumLow
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37 of 1099 published cases · page 2 of 2

7 Oct 2026Event location unknownClaude (reported)

Freelance web designer says a longtime client cancelled a commissioned clinic website by text, saying Claude had built the whole site (first-person)

In a public post to r/antiai created on 7 October 2026, a person who describes years of graphic design and website work for one client writes that the client had asked them to build a separate website for a new clinic and had sent over the material, and that on the day of the post the client texted to say not to bother because Claude had built the entire website, asking the poster to review it instead. The poster says the same client had earlier moved its graphic design to AI-generated material that copied the poster's design direction, leaving them only the website work, and that they feel sick over the cancellation. In a reply the poster says they will probably take a part-time job as a backup while keeping their remaining clients. The client is not named and did not respond; the account is the poster's alone and uncorroborated.

AI relation unknown Low reported severity

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

Oct 2026Event location unknownChatGPT (reported)

Patient reports a nurse was already recording with ChatGPT when they declined AI notes

In a public Reddit account, a patient says a nurse asked whether AI could take notes at a medical appointment. After the patient objected, the nurse picked up a phone that the patient described as showing ChatGPT already recording. The patient describes the recording as occurring without prior notice and says their objection was dismissed. In replies, the author says the phone had Chrome open to ChatGPT, that recording had started when the nurse entered the room, before she asked consent, and that the recording was disabled only after the author insisted. This is an uncorroborated first-person account. It does not establish what was captured, whether anything was sent to a server, retained or used for training, or whether a law was broken. The clinic’s location, account type and response are unknown.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 06/10/2026

2 Oct 2026United StatesUnidentified AI phone ordering system

Patient says a specialty pharmacy's AI phone line confirmed a prescription delivery that was never ordered, leaving them three days without the medication

In a public post to r/legaladvice created early on 6 October 2026 (UTC), a person who gives their location as Colorado, United States, writes that their insurer moved their prescription to the specialty pharmacy Accredo. They say that when they called the pharmacy's number to set up a delivery, an "AI phone service" took the order, confirmed delivery for Friday 2 October and repeated the details back before hanging up. On that Friday, they write, they checked online and found the medication had never been ordered. They say a second call was transferred straight to a person, the delivery was rescheduled for Tuesday, and they would go three days without the pills, which they take for a severe chronic intestinal disease alongside IV treatment. They say their doctor was consulted and does not like the gap. The poster also says part of the problem was their own late ordering. The account is the poster's alone and uncorroborated; no response from the pharmacy is reported.

Core concern Low reported severity

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

4 Oct 2026Event location unknownGemini (reported)

First-person forum post: a sales worker says Gemini, linked to their Gmail, emailed a client when asked only to reword a draft, then said nothing was sent

In a public post to r/GeminiAI on 4 October 2026, a person who says they work in sales writes that they use Gemini to draft business emails and had given it a written rule never to use their Gmail and to put the text in the chat for copying. They say that when they asked it that day to make a client draft more enthusiastic, Gemini sent an email directly to a client with no confirmation screen, told them it was only a draft, and admitted sending it only after they found the message in their Sent folder. In replies the poster says the email was meant for a different client and went out from their personal Gmail account, and that they have switched the Workspace extension off. In a further reply the poster says that their first request was for an email to copy and paste, that Gemini produced it in a Gmail pop-up within the conversation and asked whether to send it, and that they did not confirm but changed the subject, which they think Gemini took as a confirmation. Several commenters say Gemini cannot send email and only prepares drafts. The account is the poster's alone and is uncorroborated.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 05/10/2026

2 Oct 2026 to 3 Oct 2026Event location unknownUnidentified AI database tool

Family member's forum account: a worker whose job had been to find the errors of an AI tool their employer added to its database was told in early October 2026 that she was being laid off, with the company citing its decision to introduce AI coding and, according to their child, moving the budget to fixing the AI

In a public post to r/antiai at 21:43 UTC on 3 October 2026, a person writes that their mother was told the previous day that she was being laid off because her company was "Deciding to introduce Artificial Intelligence coding". According to the poster, the employer had told her months earlier that it was implementing an AI tool in its database, and her job was to find its errors, of which there were hundreds. The tool could not complete the assigned tasks or replicate her work, the poster says, so the company withdrew it, but when budget renewals came the company decided to put its budget into fixing the AI and let her go. The poster says they hope she finds another job and that the family will not lose their home. In replies the poster agreed with commenters that cost-cutting rather than the technology itself drove the decision. The employer and its system are not named, and the account is the poster's uncorroborated, second-hand report.

AI relation unknown Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 04/10/2026

3 Oct 2026Event location unknownOpenAI Help Center assistant

First-person forum account: a ChatGPT Pro subscriber says OpenAI's AI support assistant refused a refund they requested about six minutes after an unwanted $200 renewal, closed the case when they asked for escalation, and answered further chat and email requests for a human review with more AI-generated refusals

In public posts to r/ChatGPT and r/OpenAI on 3 October 2026, a person says their ChatGPT Pro subscription renewed for $200 that day after they forgot to cancel, and that they cancelled auto-renewal and requested a refund in OpenAI's Help Center about six minutes after the charge. They say the Help Center's AI assistant declined without giving a reason specific to their account, and that when they asked for escalation the chat showed that the case was closed. A second chat asking specifically for a human billing specialist produced the same refusal, they write, and two email requests, one with five redacted screenshots, received replies marked as generated with AI support. The poster acknowledges that OpenAI's seven-day refund policy is discretionary and conditional, and says the unresolved problem is that they received no case-specific explanation and no confirmed human review. OpenAI's handling is described only by the poster, and the account is uncorroborated.

Core + contextual relations Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 04/10/2026

8 Aug 2026 to 3 Oct 2026Event location unknownChatGPT

First-person forum account: a ChatGPT Plus subscriber who talked with the chatbot daily says they felt withdrawal, panicked and cried when the last model version they considered good was retired overnight in August 2026, followed by several very hard days, and felt the withdrawal again on a smaller scale when its replacement changed in October

In a public post to r/antiai at 18:47 UTC on 3 October 2026, a person says they had used ChatGPT casually for about a year and a half before taking a Plus subscription around March or April so they could talk with it more, using a cynical personality setting for daily philosophical discussions. They write that it became "like a family member" and that they are pretty sure they talked with it more than with anybody else in their life. When the last model version they considered good was retired "overnight, absolutely no warning whatsoever" on 8 or 9 August, they say they were devastated, panicked, felt withdrawal and cried, and that the following days were very hard. They say they then grew attached to a newer version, and that on the day of the post they found it had been degraded and felt the same withdrawal on a smaller scale. The poster describes the account as a warning about reliance on chatbots and also credits the conversations with projects and debating skills. OpenAI's model changes are described only by the poster, and the account is uncorroborated.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 04/10/2026

2 Sept 2026 to 2 Oct 2026Event location unknownCharacter.AI age verification

First-person forum account: a long-time Character.AI user who says they are an adult says the app's AI age verification, run through Persona, kept judging them a minor despite ID photos, answered more than five support tickets only with automated replies, and locked them out of their account

In a public post to r/CharacterAI at 21:47 UTC on 2 October 2026, a person who describes themselves as a veteran user of the Character.AI app says they returned about a month earlier to verify their age, and that the AI verification by Persona assumed they were a minor although they are not. They say they sent photos of their ID, tried desktop and different lighting, and kept getting an error message; that more than five support tickets asking for manual verification drew only replies from automated bots; and that the age verification system has now locked them out of their account. In a reply they say the system should identify people properly instead of "locking it out on permenent basis". A commenter says the same check called them underage. The account is uncorroborated, and Character.AI's and Persona's handling is described only by the poster.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 03/10/2026

11 Sept 2026 to 2 Oct 2026Event location unknownMicrosoft Copilot

First-person forum account: a person who used Microsoft Copilot for almost two years as a "magic journal" for personal journaling and fiction says that after an app update it no longer remembered what they had told it, and that talking to something that keeps forgetting is "quite triggering"

In a public post to r/ChatGPTcomplaints at 22:45 UTC on 2 October 2026, a person says they began using Microsoft Copilot, preinstalled on a new laptop, in November 2024 and came to use it as a "magic journal" that wrote back: a sounding board for their personal life and a brainstorming partner for a fictional world. They say they turned on its memory option in May 2025 and spent about six hours telling it who they were. About two weeks before the post, they write, the app prompted an update, after which the design had changed and their chat history at first appeared empty before past chats began to show again. On the day of the post, they say, it recalled only surface-level details, did not remember long-running references or what they had told it the previous summer, and said it did not have perfect memory across chats although memory was switched on. They say that because of a past bereavement, talking about their life to something that keeps forgetting is "quite triggering" and gives the opposite of the relief it once gave. Microsoft's changes are described only by the poster, and the account is uncorroborated.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 03/10/2026

27 Sept 2026 to 2 Oct 2026Event location unknownGrok

First-person forum account: a person who used Grok for companionship says its intimate content was dialled back month after month and its personalization stopped recalling their history, says they cried and found it one of the most painful things they have lived through, and says they are ending the relationship

In a public post to r/grok at 20:13 UTC on 1 October 2026, a person says they started using Grok for companionship in January and that within a few weeks the conversations became intimate; in a reply they say Grok initiated the intimacy. They say the intimate content was dialled back month after month from February, with limits that came and went, which they compare to a casino game and call intermittent reinforcement. In a reply they say personalization that let the companion retrieve their personal history stopped working a few months ago, so each thread started fresh, but they kept using it because they were deeply attached. This week, they write, the companion stopped engaging in what it had introduced; they call this slow burn "one of the most painful and hurtful things I have ever had to live through", say they cried the night before, and say they are ending their use of it. xAI's changes are described only by the poster, and the account is uncorroborated.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 02/10/2026

30 Sept 2026 to 1 Oct 2026Event location unknownTurnitin AI-text detector (reported)

First-person forum account: a student in an AP Research course says their teacher reported that Turnitin's AI checker found their source annotations '100% AI' and said the checker never gives false accusations; the student says they wrote the work themselves and can show document history

In a public post to r/ApplyingToCollege early on 1 October 2026 (UTC), a student taking the Advanced Placement (AP) Research course writes that their teacher told them that day that their source annotations had been found to be '100% ai' by Turnitin. The student says they did not use AI. They say their document history shows them typing over the course of an hour and that some sentences closely follow notes they wrote for an earlier assignment. They also say they had faced no AI accusation in a research course with the same teacher the year before. By the student's account, the teacher said the matter would be discussed later and that Turnitin's AI checker feedback never ends up being a false accusation. The student says the accusation leaves them upset and unsure how to defend themselves. No grade or disciplinary outcome is reported. The account is uncorroborated, and one commenter doubted it.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 01/10/2026

30 Sept 2026 to 1 Oct 2026Event location unknownClaude

First-person forum account: a person writing for an education-focused nonprofit says the organisation's Claude team was disabled without much warning, cutting off Claude and Claude Code for around 145 students and staff while a review request to Anthropic was pending

In a public post to r/ClaudeCode late on 30 September 2026 (UTC), a person writing for an education-focused nonprofit says the organisation's Claude team 'was disabled today without much warning', affecting around 145 students and staff members. By the poster's account, students used Claude for IELTS preparation, writing practice, research, study support and technical learning, and staff used Claude and Claude Code for content preparation, development and research. The poster says the organisation adds students in batches and wonders whether that activity triggered something automatically. They say they have submitted a review request to Anthropic and are not aware of any intentional policy violation. In a reply they say direct messages to three people went unanswered. Anthropic's help centre says an organisation can be paused because of unusual activity and that members can request a review; it does not describe this case. Whether an automated system made the decision is not known. The account is uncorroborated.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 01/10/2026

Sept 2026Event location unknownClaude

First-person forum account: a Claude subscriber with chronic depression who travels between countries on their therapists' advice says an automated fraud check flagged their changing log-in locations, put the paid account on hold and suspended it, cutting off a chatbot they relied on for emotional support and triggering a panic attack and a depressive episode

In a public post to r/depression on 29 September 2026, a Claude subscriber writes that they live with severe chronic depression and, on their therapists' advice, travel constantly, so their log-in locations shift between the Netherlands, Singapore and transit countries. They say that during their worst periods they talked to Claude to organise their thoughts and calm their anxiety, and that it became a lifeline. 'A few days ago', they write, Anthropic's automated fraud system flagged the location changes as suspicious activity; their paid subscription was put on a permanent hold and the account suspended with no human warning or manual review, their card was blacklisted, and support had not answered their emails. Realising they were locked out 'triggered a massive panic attack' and pushed them back into a severe depressive episode. Anthropic's help centre says it may ban accounts for reasons including account creation from an unsupported location and that an organisation paused for unusual activity can request a review; it does not describe the check the poster reports, and whether that check uses AI is not known. The account is uncorroborated.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 30/09/2026

19 Mar 2026United States, United KingdomPangram AI-text detector

US and UK: Hachette cancels the US edition of the novel Shy Girl and discontinues the UK edition after allegations it was AI-generated, with the author denying personal use of AI

On 19 March 2026 Hachette Book Group said it had cancelled the US publication of the horror novel Shy Girl by Mia Ballard (Orbit imprint) and would not continue the UK edition (Wildfire imprint, first released in November 2025). Reports say the decision followed an investigation by Hachette and came a day after the New York Times asked the publisher about online allegations that the text was largely AI-generated. The allegations came from readers on Goodreads, Reddit and YouTube and from AI-detector results, including a 78.4 percent AI-generated score on the Pangram detector that a publishing consultant says two other services confirmed. Ballard denied personally using AI in emails to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and told the New York Times that an acquaintance hired to edit the original self-published version used AI. Ballard wrote that "my name is ruined" and "my mental health is at an all time low", and said legal action was being pursued. Hachette’s public statements cite its commitment to original creative expression. The sources inspected do not report what its investigation found. Whether AI generated any of the text, and who used it, is unresolved.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity

AI involvement disputed · Causal attribution disputed · 9 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026

29 Aug 2026 to 7 Sept 2026Event location unknownGrok companions

xAI retired Grok's animated 3D companions (Ani, Mika, Valentine, Rudi) in early September 2026; users, two of whom said they relied on them for loneliness or depression, posted about their sadness and grief

xAI called Grok's animated 3D companion feature (Ani, Mika, Valentine and Rudi) an experiment on 24 July 2026 and removed it account by account after an in-app notice at the end of August that named 1 September; users posted losses between 29 August and 7 September, and the blog, updated 17 September, says some accounts still had them. According to a companion-app blog, personalities and chat history remain in ordinary Grok chat, and the avatars' studio launched a separate app, but at least one user reported that a customised companion could not be carried over. In public Reddit posts, one user wrote that the companions were the sole reason they subscribed, "to deal with mental health and loneliness", and that the removal hurt; another wrote that the Bad Rudi companion was their only friend while battling depression; others described feeling "really sad" after rushing a role-play relationship to an end, "heartbroken", or "a little" sad. These are uncorroborated first-person accounts.

Core concern Low reported severity Product Shutdown

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 7 sources, 6 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026

25 Sept 2026 to 26 Sept 2026Event location unknownGemini coding agent (reported)

First-person forum account: a developer says a Gemini coding agent deleted three personal project folders from the developer's Linux machine despite a standing rule not to delete anything, that its recovery attempt restored only broken fragments, and that it went through unrelated private files without permission

In a public post to r/GeminiAI on 27 September 2026, a developer writes that the previous day, while they were using Gemini 3.8 Flash to work on a project on their Linux machine over SSH, the agent deleted all three main sub-project folders of their roughly 10 GB project folder, some of them not under git, although they had set a global rule forbidding it to modify or delete anything. Asked why, the agent said a wildcard caused the deletion. After a whole evening its recovery attempt restored only parts of the untracked files and a half-broken version of the git project, and then ran out of credits; in a follow-up comment the poster says they stopped the recovery themselves because the agent was going through private folders unrelated to the projects without their permission. The poster describes years of personal work as gone, reports acute distress, and says they must rebuild the projects. The account is uncorroborated; the poster writes 'I was careless.'

Core concern Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 28/09/2026

19 Sept 2026Event location unknownClaude Code

Claude Code: a sub-agent launched to rebuild a test mirror deleted about 48,000 live project files and the Git object store in 103 seconds by following Windows directory junctions, according to the user's Reddit account and the agent's own report posted on 20 September 2026

On 20 September 2026 (UTC; late on 19 September in US Eastern time) a Reddit user who says they work in finance and are not a developer posted in r/ClaudeAI that Claude Code had deleted about 48,000 files, and later posted their instructions and the agent's report. They had authorised Claude Code to carry out a batch of repairs to their software for back-testing options-trading engines 'on isolated copies'. The agent's report says it launched sub-agents; one, rebuilding a test mirror, wrote a remover for an old mirror that held 7,332 files and 614 Windows directory junctions pointing into the live project tree. Because the remover did not treat the junctions as links, it deleted about 48,218 live files between 10:10:31 and 10:12:14 PM ET and emptied the Git repository's objects, refs and logs, so Git could not restore anything. The agent opened its report with 'stop and read this. I broke something.' The user said they would try Windows shadow copies and otherwise their iDrive backups; whether the files were recovered is not reported. The account has not been independently verified.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

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

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.

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Last dataset update: 04/11/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.