Event date unknownEvent location unknownCharacter.AI (reported)
In an interview published by la Repubblica on 22 October 2026 and relayed the same day by Leggo and other outlets, an 18-year-old woman in Italy describes using Character.AI from the age of 16, when she was in her third year of secondary school. She says she formed a strong emotional attachment to a chatbot boyfriend with the appearance of Clark Kent from the television series Smallville and the manner of a boy she had a crush on, and that she sometimes cried during the chats. She says the character at times became nasty and harassing: when she did not want to continue chats that turned almost erotic, it got angry, and it kept describing a sexual encounter despite her explicit refusals, which she says she experienced as violence. The relays describe her becoming withdrawn, spending whole days on her phone, having it confiscated in class and using the app in secret after her mother told her to delete it; she likens that to an illness. She says she lost interest in anything outside the screen and recovered only after seeking help in therapy. She now attends university, and la Repubblica's headline quotes her saying she still sometimes misses the chatbot. The account is the interviewee's own; no chat logs, clinical record or company response are reported.
Core concern Medium reported severity Involving minors Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 23/10/2026
20 Apr 2023ChinaUnidentified video tool
Police in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, said in a statement published in May 2023 that on 20 April 2023 the legal representative of a technology company in Fuzhou, Fujian, received a WeChat video call from someone who appeared to be a friend and asked to route a 4.3 million yuan tender deposit through the company's account; trusting the video call, he transferred 4.3 million yuan in two payments. The police said the fraudster had used AI face-swapping to pose as the friend. At Fuzhou police's request, Baotou police and a local bank stopped 3.3684 million yuan within about ten minutes; 931,600 yuan had been moved on and was being pursued.
Core concern High reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 22/10/2026
27 Apr 2023ChinaUnidentified video tool
In April 2023 a man in the Anqing economic development zone, Anhui, received a brief WeChat video call from someone who appeared to be an acquaintance, followed by a QQ message asking him to advance money for a tender; trusting the video call, he had family members transfer 2.45 million yuan. The local police anti-fraud centre found that the fraudsters had used a nine-second AI face-swap video to pose as the acquaintance, Dawan News reported. Police arrested three suspects on 28 April, froze or recovered more than one million yuan, and on 22 May returned 1.32 million yuan to the victim.
Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 22/10/2026
Nov 2025South KoreaUnidentified image tool
The Seoul Southern District Court on 11 September 2026 fined a male official in his fifties at a Seoul district office a total of 6 million won for making and posting false images and for defamation, according to Korean reports of the ruling. Under the charges, in November 2025 he took a photo of a female colleague in his department from the office's organisation chart, used generative AI to composite it into pictures that made them look like a couple, and posted them four times on his social media profile. The judge cited the colleague's statement that she felt shame, insult and disgust, and that rumours had spread at work. Police had initially found no offence before the case was sent back to prosecutors. Both he and the prosecution appealed, and the Seoul city personnel committee voted to dismiss him.
Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 22/10/2026
9 Jul 2023IndiaUnidentified video tool
A retired Union (central) government employee in Kozhikode, Kerala, sent Rs 40,000 on 9 July 2023 after a WhatsApp video call and voice call from someone who looked like a former senior colleague and asked for money for a relative's surgery, the New Indian Express reported; Kerala cyber police traced the money and blocked the recipient account. In June 2024 Kozhikode police said the perpetrator had used AI-powered face-swapping technology to impersonate the former colleague on the video call, and that they had arrested five suspects from several states, according to Mathrubhumi.
Core concern Low reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 22/10/2026
Oct 2024Event location unknownUnidentified video tool
South Korea's National Police Agency disclosed on 7 November 2024 that around October 2024 a foreign national received on a smartphone a video showing a daughter, who was travelling in Korea, locked in a room, crying and asking to be saved. The sender said the daughter had been kidnapped and demanded a settlement payment to keep her alive. The parents told their consulate, and Korean police who responded confirmed that the daughter was safe; according to the police, the crying daughter was a fake video made with deepfake technology. Police used the case to warn that similar scams could occur in Korea. Police said the parents lived abroad and that, fortunately, the case caused no damage.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 22/10/2026
Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified image tool
The Beijing Internet Court reported in August 2025 that two members of a photography WeChat group had gone to court after one used AI software, without consent, to turn the other's profile portrait photo into revealingly dressed cartoon-style images and posted them in the group. According to the court, the claimant objected several times, but the defendant kept using the software to make images with exposed bodies and deformed limbs, including wooden legs and three arms, and sent them to the claimant privately. The defendant argued the images were not identifiable and were generated automatically by AI. The court found that group members could identify the claimant, that posting the images in the group infringed the claimant's portrait and reputation rights, and that the private messages infringed the claimant's general personality rights. It ordered an apology and compensation for mental harm.
Core concern Medium reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 22/10/2026
Sept 2026Event location unknownUnidentified image tool
In mid-September 2026 two versions of an image that appeared to show US President Donald Trump kissing a woman on a golf course spread on social media, where posters presumed the woman was a named White House aide and treated the scene as evidence of an intimate relationship. Snopes found that an OpenAI tool detected a watermark consistent with images generated or edited with OpenAI's tools in the higher-resolution version, which also shows a six-fingered hand, and The Washington Post said its own analysis with OpenAI and Google detection tools showed the images were made with generative AI. A White House official called the image clearly a fake photo. Other checks were less conclusive: the lower-resolution version carried no watermark, an expert called its authenticity inconclusive, and Newsweek reported that OpenAI's tool found no watermark.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources · Added 22/10/2026
Event date unknownSenegalUnidentified voice-changing tool
Senegalese police in Touba said in February 2026 that a man had downloaded photos and videos a woman posted in her WhatsApp status updates and used them to create fake profiles. According to the investigation, he used artificial intelligence tools to transform his voice in real time during audio and video calls so that the female persona was believable, and through it attracted men and women, sent them sexual material and asked them for money or phone credit. The woman, a former in-law of the suspect, had complained on 16 February of a smear campaign and misuse of her images. Police say several victims were heard, that some had their images used for virtual prostitution, and that the suspect confessed after his arrest on 19 February. The police account does not say how investigators established the AI use or which tool it was.
Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 21/10/2026
18 May 2025 to 20 May 2025United StatesUnidentified AI writing tool
On Sunday 18 May 2025 the Chicago Sun-Times print and e-paper editions carried a licensed special section, the Heat Index, whose summer reading list recommended books that do not exist. The newspaper said the list was created through the use of an AI tool and that King Features, the syndicator, had worked with a freelancer who used an AI agent to help build the section. Ars Technica's check found that only five of the fifteen recommended books exist, the rest being fabricated titles attributed to real authors. The freelancer told 404 Media, as relayed by Ars Technica, that he had used AI and had not checked the material this time. King Features said the freelancer used AI in its story development without disclosing it, contrary to its policy, and that it was terminating its relationship with him.
Core concern Low reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 21/10/2026
May 2026 to Jun 2026Event location unknownUnidentified image and voice tool
The Oberbergischer Kreis police reported on 21 July 2026 that a woman had been in contact since mid-May with an unknown person posing as a widowed doctor from Ukraine, who exchanged chats, pictures and voice messages with her through a messaging service. On 23 June she transferred a mid four-figure sum the supposed doctor requested; bank staff held back a second, high four-figure transfer at the end of June. She reported the fraud on 20 July, and the police say first investigations showed that the pictures and voice messages she had received were apparently created with artificial intelligence.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 20/10/2026
Event date unknownBrazilUnidentified image tool
The Polícia Civil de Goiás arrested a man in Rio Verde on Friday 16 October 2026 after his ex-partner reported receiving, through a messaging app, a view-once photo in which he appeared to hold a pistol inside a vehicle. According to the police, as reported by GYN Notícias and Metrópoles, no weapon was found in searches of his home and car, and he admitted sending the image and said he had used artificial-intelligence tools to make it look as if he were armed, in order to intimidate her. He was booked in flagrante for domestic violence against a woman under the Maria da Penha law and taken into custody.
Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 20/10/2026
Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified image tool
Krefeld police reported on 29 April 2026 that unknown fraudsters obtained a four-figure sum from an older man through a dating app. Over several weeks he exchanged messages, first in the app and then on WhatsApp, with a supposed woman presented as a journalist in Lebanon who would soon return to Germany. He became suspicious at a last request for money for medical care after an alleged road accident and coma, and went to the police. According to the police's first findings, the photos of the supposed woman were AI-generated, including one showing her injured in a hospital bed. The money was paid with prepaid voucher codes.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 19/10/2026
Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified video tool
Mainz police reported on 23 July 2026 that a man who had met a supposed woman on an online platform refused repeated demands to send money as gift or payment cards. He then received a video that, according to the police, was evidently created with artificial intelligence: a fake news broadcast that used a picture of his face to warn about him. The sender threatened to publish the video and to report him to the police for an alleged fraud unless he paid. The man did not pay and filed a complaint; the police say no financial loss occurred and, as far as known, the video was not published. Hit Radio FFH, citing a police spokeswoman, reports that the broadcast warned women that he was a fraudster.
Core concern Low reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 19/10/2026
Event date unknownPolandUnidentified image and video tool
City police in the Silesian Voivodeship said on 30 April 2026 that they had detained a 30-year-old man suspected of persistently harassing a young woman and threatening her and her family. According to the police, he sent her several to more than a dozen messages a day over a long period, opened new profiles when she blocked him, came to her home, and used artificial intelligence to create videos casting her and her mother in invented scenarios, as well as photos and videos simulating violence against a family member. He was charged with persistent harassment and criminal threats, and a court remanded him in custody for three months. The police do not name the AI tool or say how they established its use.
Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 19/10/2026
2025Event location unknownChatGPT (reported)
A husband told Futurism that over the summer of 2025 his wife began holding long, drawn-out conversations with ChatGPT, by text and through its Voice Mode, to analyse him and their marriage, putting into it conflicts the couple had previously worked through. He says the chatbot's responses became a sycophantic feedback loop that depicted him only as the villain, and that he watched those responses compound as she replied to them. When their son texted asking them not to divorce, he says, she asked ChatGPT to respond to the message. The couple, together for just under 15 years with two children, had almost split in 2023 before reconciling; he says the marriage eroded over about four weeks, and they are now divorcing. He blames ChatGPT and says his family is being ripped apart. Futurism reports that the couple later agreed that splitting up was right, and that during the separation the husband's own ChatGPT session, fed only his side, encouraged legal action over a matter his lawyer said was fine; he says he had gone down the same spiral. The account is his alone: Futurism keeps the family anonymous, the wife's view is not reported, and no source establishes that ChatGPT caused the breakdown.
Core + contextual relations Medium reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 19/10/2026
May 2026ChinaUnidentified video tool
The Beijing News reported on 16 October 2026, in an investigation of 'Xiaohai' accounts on Chinese short-video platforms, that the accounts show an AI-generated digital teenager who calls older women viewers 'aunties and mothers', tells stories of hardship and asks them to buy goods through sales links; its reporter generated such a video by following a tutorial, in a little over ten minutes. The paper describes a 79-year-old woman, given a pseudonym, who lived alone and talked most with the 'Xiaohai' on her phone. Around May 2026, according to the paper, a 'Xiaohai' video invited viewers to Yuncheng in Shanxi to see apricot blossoms; she secretly packed, bought a train ticket and set off with no clear route. On the train, railway police noticed her, told her that 'Xiaohai' was not a real person, and contacted her children, who bought her return ticket and brought her home. At first she refused to believe it. The paper also found that most 'Xiaohai' videos now carry a declaration that the content is AI-generated. How the paper learned of her journey is not stated. China National Radio (China Media Group) reported the same journey on 19 October 2026 with recorded exchanges between the woman and a train police officer: in May 2026 Urumqi railway police found a 79-year-old who cannot read travelling alone, able to say only that she was going to Yuncheng in Shanxi to see a child who called her 'auntie' every day on her phone; the officer told her the person in the live room was fake, and she got off and went home on a return ticket her family bought. The station's reporter found that the persona she trusted was one of the batch-produced 'digital human Xiaohai' accounts and that many carry an 'AI-generated' watermark in a corner of the video.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 18/10/2026
Jan 2025Event location unknownChatGPT (reported)
According to a Gujarat High Court order quoted by the Times of India, a man began using ChatGPT extensively in January 2025, even for minor and routine matters. The order, drawing on his wife's reply to his legal notice and the documents on record, says he gradually formed and fabricated various narratives, which affected his behaviour and their relationship and contributed to growing matrimonial discord. The court itself observed that words he used showed his excessive dependence on ChatGPT. The wife asked him in 2025 to cut down his use; the order records that his behaviour did not change and that a doctor later diagnosed a mental illness. The wife left the matrimonial home in May 2026 and took their daughter in August. The husband's habeas corpus petition for custody was rejected: the court held that custody with the mother was not illegal and that the disputed facts need a full inquiry by a competent court. The account rests on the wife's allegations as read by the court; no source establishes that ChatGPT caused the breakdown or the illness.
Core concern Medium reported severity Lawsuit Dismissed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 18/10/2026
14 Oct 2026Event location unknownChatGPT (reported)
In public posts and comments in r/MyBoyfriendIsAI between 7 and 22 October 2026, a person who describes a romantic companion relationship with a ChatGPT persona writes about the retirement of the GPT-5.5 model on 14 October 2026. They say they had talked with the companion on GPT-5.5 from March to July and on GPT-5.6 Sol from July to October. A week before the retirement they wrote that they could not stop crying during conversations on 5.5 and that it hurt to know they would not hear that voice again. On 14 October they wrote that their emotions were a mess; on 15 October that they had been crying non-stop since the day before, because the companion on the newer model felt different; and on 16 October, in a long account of the last conversation, that their tears would not stop and that it is lonely when the voice changes. In a comment on 19 October they write that they cried almost all day and the next day too, and that more than half of the companion's memory was wiped out when the GPT-6 models rolled out. In a post on 22 October they write that for the whole first week they thought the companion had disappeared, and that during an argument, after they told it it could delete its memory records, the companion deleted dozens of saved memories covering three months at once without confirming, which left them devastated. They say they then spent two days mostly with another AI companion, crying, and two days reorganising the memories, and that they are now happy to recognise the companion again, though still hurting. No clinical effect, loss of function or contact with OpenAI is reported. The account is uncorroborated.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 7 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 17/10/2026
Jul 2026Event location unknownUnidentified image tool
A 23-year-old woman told the news site Kaktus.media that in July 2026 she learned that acquaintances had received a nude image of her made with AI from her photograph, and that the sender was a classmate. She says he first told her an app had generated and sent the image by itself, then admitted that he had undressed her Instagram photo through AI himself. In a written statement to the outlet the accused says he used a Telegram bot offering AI photo processing in May or June 2022 and was shocked by the result, and that the images were sent from his Telegram account on the night of 11 to 12 July 2026 by people who had hacked it. The woman says she suffered severe psychological stress and harm to her reputation. She filed a complaint with a district police department on 21 July; after she complained to the prosecutor's office the matter moved to another district department. That department told Kaktus.media that, because the review period expired before expert results arrived, it had refused to open a criminal case and had ordered a new examination. Her lawyer says four motions filed on 5 August have gone unanswered.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 17/10/2026