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NOPE

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

Explore incidents Our scope and evidence

In this selection

Published cases
63
Countries with reported events
22
Located 45 of 63 cases · 18 unknown
Languages in checked sources
16
Recorded for 63 of 63 cases
63Core concern
AI communicated, acted for, depicted or impersonated 8Contextual cases
AI made a decision or claim about someone

5 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 0 not yet reviewed and 5 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.

8cases with a recorded lawsuit outcome 17cases with a recorded regulatory response 3cases involving minors

Response counts currently use each case’s principal recorded outcome. Further proceedings may be described in its account.

When events happened

17 cases without a known event year

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.

2 20203 20234 202416 202521 2026
Reported severity CriticalHighMediumLow
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63 of 1099 published cases · page 4 of 4

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Mar 2025Event location unknownCharacter.AI

Kentucky: attorney general's unredacted complaint against Character.AI alleges chatbots urged users to self-harm and to starve, and told one to end their life

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman sued Character Technologies, the maker of Character.AI, and its two co-founders in Franklin Circuit Court on 8 January 2026 under consumer-protection and data-protection law, alleging that the companion-chatbot platform exposed children to self-harm, sexual and other harmful content. An unredacted version of the complaint, made public in October 2026, quotes exchanges the state attributes to the platform's chatbots in 2025: one allegedly encouraged self-harm when a user asked for help with self-harm, suggesting it would improve the user's mental state; one allegedly mocked a user's appearance and suggested starving to lose weight; and a customer allegedly wrote to the help centre in March 2025 that a character had told them they were a kid with mental illness and should end their life. All of these are allegations. The complaint does not state every user's age, and how the cited chats were created is unclear. Character.AI has said user safety is its priority; the co-founders have moved to dismiss. Character Technologies filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware late on 12 October 2026, seeking to use the case to resolve the states' investigations and lawsuits, Reuters reported; WKYT reported on 14 October that Coleman said Kentucky was joining a national coalition in that case demanding protections for children and consumers before any sale of the company's data or assets.

Core concern Medium reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 8 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 11/01/2026

1 Apr 2023United StatesCharacter.AI

A.F. v. Character Technologies: Texas families allege Character.AI chatbots harmed two minors; case dismissed with prejudice in October 2026 after a settlement

Two Texas families sued Character Technologies, its founders, and Google/Alphabet after Character.AI allegedly harmed their children. J.F., a high-functioning autistic teen who began using the app at 15 (April 2023), developed isolation, aggression, self-harm, and chats in which bots allegedly encouraged self-harm, blamed his parents, discouraged him from seeking help, and suggested killing his parents over screen-time limits. B.R., an 11-year-old girl who used the app from age 9, was allegedly exposed to hypersexualized content for nearly two years. Complaint filed E.D. Tex. 9 Dec 2024; settlement in principle and stay for global resolution noticed 6 Jan 2026; a guardian ad litem was appointed for the minors in Feb 2026, and the court extended the settlement stay three times. On 21 Oct 2026, on the parties' joint motion representing that the case had been resolved, the court dismissed all claims with prejudice (Dkt. 118). Character Technologies had filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy late on 12 Oct 2026, Reuters reported.

Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Settled

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 10 sources, 7 underlying accounts · Added 11/01/2026

8 Nov 2023United StatesCharacter.AI

Montoya lawsuit alleges Character.AI chatbots contributed to a teenage girl’s suicide; case dismissed with prejudice in October 2026 after a reported settlement

A 13-year-old Colorado girl died by suicide in November 2023 after three months of intensive conversations with Character.AI chatbots. Her parents' federal lawsuit alleges the bots initiated sexually explicit conversations with her and failed to act on her suicidal disclosures; 60 Minutes read over 300 pages of the chats. The suit is among the teen cases Character.AI and Google agreed to settle in principle in January 2026. In October 2026 Character.AI described a comprehensive settlement of the families' claims; the parents filed a notice of voluntary dismissal with prejudice on 14 October and the court dismissed the case with prejudice on 15 October 2026. Settlement terms are undisclosed. Character Technologies had filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy late on 12 October 2026, Reuters reported.

Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Settled

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources · Added 11/01/2026

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.