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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
234
Countries with reported events
44
Located 169 of 234 cases · 65 unknown
Languages in checked sources
33
Recorded for 234 of 234 cases

4 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 1 not yet reviewed and 3 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.

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234 of 1099 published cases · page 3 of 12

Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified video tool

Fact-checkers say videos impersonating an Albanian cardiologist and a journalist to sell hypertension pills were likely AI-made; both men disowned them

A Facebook page in the name of the Albanian cardiologist Dr. Spiro Qirko published a video claiming he had discovered a cure for hypertension, and a second video presented as an interview of him by the journalist Ilir Topi, promoting a product called Hyper Caps. Kallxo's fact-checking unit Krypometer, in an article of 30 March 2026, reports that it ran the video through the AI-content detector Hive Moderation, which gave a 96.4% probability that the video and the speech were AI-generated, and that Hyper Caps is not on the Kosovo medicines agency's list of products authorised for marketing. Both men told Krypometer they had nothing to do with the page or the video. The journalist said it was AI-generated and fake, and the cardiologist said he felt deeply offended by the fraud and had never recommended herbal remedies for hypertension. Who made the videos, how widely they circulated and whether anyone bought the product are not reported.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 27/10/2026

20 Mar 2025 to 14 Nov 2025Event location unknownUnidentified image tool

Amsterdam court jails man who used deepfake technology to pass a bank's face check with other people's IDs and open 47 accounts in their names

The Amsterdam District Court said in March 2026 that a 34-year-old man was suspected of opening 47 bank accounts in other people's names between 20 March and 14 November 2025 by using deepfake technology to mislead a bank's identity-verification system. At the hearing on 17 March 2026, the prosecution said he had beaten ABN AMRO's app check, which compares a face scan with the photo on an identity document, by replacing ID photos with his own and by adjusting his own face photos to resemble the ID photos; the judge noted that a selfie submitted with one woman's identity document showed features of her passport photo. The prosecution said identity documents of the victims in whose names accounts were opened were found on his phone. The man denied knowing of the fraud before late September 2025, and the court reopened the investigation on 31 March to examine his phone data. According to AT5, on 17 June 2026 the court sentenced him to two and a half years in prison, six months of it suspended, and ordered him to pay 13,000 euros to ABN AMRO; AT5 reports that he pasted his victims' facial features onto his own face with AI and that some of the accounts were used for bank-helpdesk fraud and cash withdrawals.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources · Added 26/10/2026

16 Oct 2026United StatesHark AI agent (reported)

Post says Hark AI agent charged a user $27.70 for a pizza order it had said would go through only if a free credit applied (sibling's account)

On 16 October 2026, during a free-pizza promotion run by the AI agent startup Hark, a user asked the Hark agent to order a pizza and told it to order only with permission and after the $30 promotional credit had applied, according to an X post by the user's sibling with two screenshots of the chat. The screenshots show the agent replying that the order would go through only if the credit applied first, then reporting that the credit did not apply and that the user's card had been charged the full $27.70, which it called a break of the user's rule. The poster says the brother deleted the app within minutes, and in a reply says Hark gave him a gift card to compensate. Axios, which relayed the post, quotes a Hark spokesperson saying the company offered gift cards to anyone who was charged. The account is the poster's; the charge was not independently checked.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 26/10/2026

Nov 2024Event location unknownChatGPT (reported)

Crypto user says ChatGPT-written trading bot code sent his wallet's private key to a scam API and about $2,500 was stolen

On 21 November 2024 a cryptocurrency user posted on X that he had asked ChatGPT to help write a 'bump bot' for the Pump.fun token platform, and that the code it returned pointed to a scam Solana API website. By his account, the code sent his wallet's private key to that API; he had connected his main wallet, and its assets, about $2,500, were moved out within about half an hour. The founder of the blockchain security firm SlowMist commented that the bot code carried a backdoor and called the case an AI poisoning attack. Heise, ForkLog, Cryptopolitan and Odaily relayed the posts on 22 and 25 November 2024. He said he reported the chat to OpenAI and the source repository to GitHub, which removed it. Heise noted that the code's own comment showed the private key being sent and that he had used his main wallet rather than a test account.

Core concern Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 25/10/2026

Event date unknownIndiaUnidentified image and document tool

Kanpur Dehat, India: police say a man posing as a Secretariat official used AI-made photos with national leaders and AI-made appointment letters in a job fraud

Police in Akbarpur, Kanpur Dehat district (Uttar Pradesh), arrested a man on the night of 23 October 2026 who, they say, called himself a deputy director at the state Secretariat in Lucknow and took money from job seekers for government posts. Five people had jointly complained on 22 October that he took lakhs of rupees from them, gave them fake appointment letters for review officer and clerk posts and threatened to kill them when they asked for their money back. According to the station officer as reported by Amar Ujala, his office held several AI-made pictures showing him with the Prime Minister, the Chief Minister and other public representatives, which police seized; Amar Ujala reports that he showed such pictures to win people's trust. In police questioning, as relayed by Amar Ujala and Aman Yatra Live, he said that he made a fake identity card with AI tools and that appointment letters and orders prepared with AI were printed and handed or posted to candidates. The police do not say how the AI use was established or which tool was used. He was produced in court and sent to jail, and police say they are searching for other members of the group.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 25/10/2026

Oct 2026Event location unknownClaude (reported)

Systems administrator says a small firm terminated them and its lead developer, replacing both with an Anthropic AI subscription (first-person account)

In a public post to r/jobs titled 'We were replaced with AI', created on 24 October 2026, a server and network administrator writes that they and the company's lead developer were terminated that day: their access to various systems was revoked and the chief executive then called them, with major budget cuts as the theme of the call. The poster writes that both were replaced with 'the Anthropic subscription' and, in a reply, that it is an Anthropic subscription of 180 dollars a month that the chief executive mentioned, and that staff had seen him using it to scan the company's infrastructure days earlier. In replies the poster says the company is small, located in Australia, and that they worked for it remotely, that finance staff had calls with the chief executive scheduled for the following Monday, and that they feel their years of loyalty were thrown away. The company is not named. The account is the poster's alone and uncorroborated; no employer statement was retrieved.

AI relation unknown Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 25/10/2026

Event date unknownHondurasChatGPT (reported)

San Pedro Sula, Honduras: police say a woman used AI and ChatGPT to fake bank-transfer receipts to deceive sellers of high-end phones

Honduras's National Police said on 24 October 2026 that they had arrested a 25-year-old woman in San Pedro Sula who, they say, found people selling high-end mobile phones on Facebook Marketplace and sent them fake bank-transfer receipts made with AI tools, including ChatGPT, so that they would believe she had paid. According to the police report as relayed by La Prensa, El Heraldo and TuNota, the deposits were not credited to the sellers' accounts. A seller alerted a motorcycle police unit while the attempt was under way, and she was arrested in the act on suspicion of attempted fraud. The outlets relay the preliminary findings in conditional wording; the police do not say how they established the AI use, and no seller's loss is quantified.

Core concern Low reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 25/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified voice-cloning and deepfake tool

Nigeria: police say a suspect arrested in Lagos used AI voice cloning and deepfake technology to impersonate Elon Musk to victims of an investment scheme

The Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre (NPF-NCCC) said at a press briefing in Abuja on Friday 23 October 2026 that its operatives arrested three suspects in Lekki, Lagos State, on 14 October over alleged identity theft, investment fraud and money laundering. According to the centre's director, the suspects allegedly operated fake social media accounts impersonating prominent personalities to trick victims into transferring money, and were linked to a cryptocurrency investment scheme promoted through a website called Bitcoin Trading Hub. Investigators said one of the suspects used artificial intelligence voice cloning and deepfake technology to impersonate Tesla chief executive Elon Musk and communicate with victims, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. The police did not say how they established the AI use or which tools were involved, how many people were deceived or how much they lost. Seized devices were undergoing forensic examination to identify victims and trace the proceeds, and the three suspects remained in custody.

Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 25/10/2026

Apr 2025ChinaUnidentified video tool

Beijing Internet Court finds a short-drama maker used AI face-swapping to give a performer a well-known actress's likeness, infringing her portrait rights

On 20 March 2026 the Beijing Internet Court announced a portrait-rights judgment over an online short drama in which, it found, the production company used deep-synthesis (AI face-swap) technology to generate an image highly similar to a well-known actress, according to Beijing Daily and a Sina Finance report drawing on it. In April 2025 internet users had questioned whether the drama had face-swapped a performer into the actress, and many believed she had appeared in it. The court found that two segments of the 44-episode, roughly 90-minute drama used AI face-swapping and that the face resembled the actress closely enough for the public to identify her. The maker argued that the image was generated by AI without any prompt relating to her and could not reproduce its process in court. The court held the maker liable for portrait-rights infringement and the broadcaster liable for failing to review the content, and ordered both to post written apologies on their video accounts and pay economic damages; neither appealed. The amount is not reported in the sources read.

Core concern Low reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution established · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 24/10/2026

2021IndiaSamagra Vedika

Al Jazeera investigation says Telangana's Samagra Vedika system wrongly matched poor families to car owners, and officials denied them food subsidy cards

An Al Jazeera investigation published on 24 January 2024, produced with The Reporters' Collective and the Pulitzer Center's AI Accountability Network, reports that Samagra Vedika, a system the Telangana government uses to consolidate residents' data and check welfare eligibility, wrongly tagged poor families in Hyderabad as owning cars, and that officials relied on those tags to deny them food security cards (subsidised rice). Al Jazeera says the system uses machine learning and entity resolution to match people across databases, and that since 2016 officials have been mandated to check whether the system approved an applicant before deciding. In one case it reports that the system mistook a widow's late husband, a rickshaw puller, for a car owner with a similar name; her renewal application was rejected in 2021 for possessing a four-wheeler. After she traced the vehicle's real owner, officials agreed there had been an algorithmic error but said her family income exceeded the limit, which Al Jazeera says was not the case; she had been without the subsidised rations for more than seven years. A second family, whose husband cannot drive, was rejected in 2021 for possessing a four-wheeler; in November 2023 the High Court of Telangana said the petitioner is eligible whenever new cards are issued. The government says the technology is highly precise and that wrong vehicle or house tags occur in under five per cent of cases and have mostly been corrected.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 24/10/2026

Event date unknownNorwayUnidentified AI writing tool

Bergen-area car dealer refused to consider buyer's complaint about faulty new car because it was AI-written, Motor reports

A car buyer living outside Bergen, Norway, who bought a new Jeep Avenger in January 2025, complained to the dealership after repeated warning messages about the brakes, ABS and stability control and more than 40 days at workshops, and asked to cancel the purchase. According to the Norwegian motoring magazine Motor, the dealer rejected the complaint, and one of the reasons it gave was that the complaint was written with AI: the manager wrote in an email that the dealer does not take AI-generated complaints into account because they only reflect the information put in. The buyer, who comes from Ukraine, says he used AI as an aid to understand nuances and phrase himself correctly because his Norwegian is limited, and calls it unfair to reject a factual complaint because of the tool he used. He has taken the case to the Norwegian Consumer Authority (Forbrukertilsynet). The dealer told Motor it had answered the customer and does not comment on ongoing customer cases. The date of the email is not given.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 24/10/2026

9 Oct 2026CanadaUnidentified image tool (suspected)

Nova Scotia woman says duct cleaners showed her an "after" photo of work she found undone; examiners for Global News found an AI watermark on it

A woman in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, told Global News that a duct-cleaning crew she booked through a Facebook Marketplace advert came to her home on 9 October 2026, showed her a phone photo of a dirty furnace motor, raised the price to $300 and then showed her a photo of a motor that looked almost new as proof the job was done. When she checked after the crew left, she says, the motor was still dirty. An AI researcher at the University at Buffalo and two students, examining the photos for Global News, found a Google SynthID watermark on the clean-motor photo; the researcher said the AI detector Sightengine gave it a 99 per cent AI score and called the result their strongest evidence that the image may come from AI. She says the company denied wrongdoing and refunded her only after repeated complaints; Halifax police told her it was a civil matter.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 24/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified AI tool

Belgian Pensions Ombudsman says an AI tool told a new retiree his missed first pension month could be paid retroactively, an answer based on Dutch rules

The Belgian Pensions Ombudsman (Ombudsdienst Pensioenen) published an anonymised example from its casework. According to the Ombudsman, a future retiree with limited digital skills wanted to apply online for an early retirement pension but did not press the send button, so no application was filed and his pension was not paid in his first month of retirement. The Federal Pension Service told him that an early pension can start at the earliest in the month after the application, so that month could not be paid. He checked this using AI and received the answer that a pension can be paid retroactively for up to one year. He complained to the Federal Pension Service and then to the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman confirmed that the service's answer was correct, told him that the information he had found concerned Dutch legislation, referred him to the pension services' websites and says it tried in this way to restore his trust in the pension service. It could not recover the missed month because Belgian pension law has no right to correct good-faith errors. The lost month resulted from the unsubmitted application; the AI answer misinformed him about whether it could be recovered. The tool is not named and the dates of the exchange and complaint are not stated; European Pensions reported the case on 9 July 2026.

Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 24/10/2026

4 Sept 2026 to 13 Oct 2026RomaniaUnidentified image and document tool

Romanian police say AI-made documents and photos won an older woman's trust in a fake stock-investment scheme that cost her over 250,000 lei

Police in Alba county, Romania, said on 22 October 2026 that an older woman had been persuaded, under the pretext of earning money from stock-market investments, to hand over about 253,600 lei between 4 September and 13 October 2026. According to the police, their investigation found that she had allegedly been misled and her trust won by being shown documents and photographs created with artificial intelligence. A man suspected of collecting the money and feeding it into a cryptocurrency ATM, for a commission of 3,000 lei per operation, was caught in the act on 21 October while coming to collect more and was detained for 24 hours on suspicion of complicity in fraud. The people behind the scheme are unidentified and the investigation continues under the local prosecutor's office. The police do not say what the documents and photographs showed or how they established that AI made them.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 23/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownCursor support bot (reported)

First-person post: Cursor subscriber says the company's AI support bot cancelled their prepaid annual plan when asked about a prorated refund

In a Reddit post on 22 October 2026, a subscriber to Cursor writes that they emailed Cursor's customer service asking whether a prorated refund was available for an annual subscription they had paid in full, and that the company's AI support bot, Sam, replied that it could not do that but could cancel the plan immediately. In a comment the poster quotes the bot saying it had cancelled the annual Pro subscription immediately, that Pro access had ended, and that the subscription did not meet refund eligibility requirements. The poster says the bot seems to have misunderstood the request, that the plan was downgraded to Free with more than six months left, that a request for a human produced a new ticket that never arrived, and that they would try a credit-card dispute. In April 2025 a Cursor co-founder wrote that the company used AI-assisted responses as the first filter for email support. No reply from Cursor staff appears in the thread. The account is uncorroborated.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 23/10/2026

20 Apr 2023ChinaUnidentified video tool

Fuzhou, China: police say a company head sent 4.3 million yuan after a WeChat video call in which AI face-swapping imitated a friend

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

Anqing, China: police say a nine-second AI face-swap video call posing as an acquaintance led a man to transfer 2.45 million yuan

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

9 Jul 2023IndiaUnidentified video tool

Kozhikode, Kerala: police say a deepfake video call imitating a former colleague cost a retired man Rs 40,000; five later arrested

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 Korean police say a foreign parent was sent a deepfake video of a daughter travelling in Korea crying for help while held captive, with a ransom demand

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

2020Hong Kong SAR ChinaUnidentified voice-cloning tool

UAE investigators say fraudsters cloned a company director's voice to have a Hong Kong branch manager transfer up to $35 million in early 2020

According to a court document reported by Forbes, in which the United Arab Emirates sought US investigators' help, fraudsters used 'deep voice' technology to clone the voice of a company director. In early 2020 a branch manager of a Japanese company in Hong Kong received a call from a man whose voice he recognised as the director of the parent business, who said an acquisition needed transfers of about $35 million; emails from the supposed director and a lawyer confirmed the details, and the manager began making the transfers. Forbes reports that as much as $35 million was stolen. The UAE, whose Dubai Public Prosecution Office led the investigation, believes at least 17 people were involved and asked for help tracing $400,000 sent to US accounts. No arrests or recovery are reported.

Core concern High reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 22/10/2026

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