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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 is wider: it also records consequential decisions and claims about people. Each account is reviewed for publication; claims may remain uncorroborated or disputed. How we review and count cases

In this selection

Published cases
150
Countries with reported events
27
Located 115 of 150 cases · 35 unknown
Languages in checked sources
21
Recorded for 142 of 150 cases

27 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 18 not yet reviewed and 9 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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150 of 404 published cases · page 6 of 8

2025IndonesiaUnidentified image and video tool

Cileungsi, Bogor Regency, Indonesia: photographs of private-school pupils taken from social media were turned into AI pornographic images and videos, reportedly since 2025; three pupils have filed a joint police report, the victims' lawyer says hundreds were affected, and two former pupils are named as suspects

Bogor Regency police confirmed on 18 September 2026 that they are investigating a report that pupils of a private school in Cileungsi had their faces edited with artificial intelligence into pornographic content. The head of the women-and-children unit told Kumparan that so far three pupils had reported in a single police report, that the case began when a victim heard from a friend that someone was making content with their face using AI technology, and that investigators were still establishing who made the content and which program was used, under the Electronic Information and Transactions Law. A lawyer for the witnesses, quoted by Pojok Bogor and Uzone, says the victims number in the hundreds; that two former pupils, one as initiator and one as maker, have been reported and admitted the acts to witnesses; that police found thousands of suspected AI-manipulated photos and videos on a suspect's phone, some uploaded to websites including an online-gambling site; and that the case, reported on 19 May 2026, is believed to have run since 2025 while all involved were still pupils, some victims now being university students. Police say the case is at an early stage and asked the public not to draw conclusions.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 19/09/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownChatGPT

First-person forum account: a 21-year-old says her partner of three years hid a paid ChatGPT subscription while owing her money, calls the use addictive and refuses to cut back, and she is weighing whether to stay

In a public post to r/relationship_advice on 16 September 2026, a 21-year-old woman wrote that she had recently discovered her partner of three years had been using ChatGPT far more than admitted: paying for a subscription without her knowledge while owing her hundreds of dollars, feeding their creative writing into it for feedback after promising never to, and using it to plan and organise daily life. She reports that the partner agreed the use was 'more than what is healthy' but refused to stop because it gives 'a dopamine hit', described it as addictive, said they would likely renew the subscription when they had money, and argued that without it they would find another addiction. She writes that she cannot see the relationship continuing if the use is not reduced, while recognising that the partner, who has neurodevelopmental and mental-health conditions, uses the tool as an organisational aid; their couples therapist has recommended AI use, so she is afraid to raise it there. The post drew 137 comments. The account is uncorroborated and one-sided; the partner's view is reported only through the poster.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 19/09/2026

Jul 2026GreeceUnidentified voice-cloning tool

Attica, Greece: a fraud ring cloned relatives' voices with AI to 'confirm' fake fibre-installation instructions; two collectors arrested in Nea Ionia with €30,000 of a victim's valuables, at least six cases since July 2026

On 18 September 2026 the Hellenic Police announced that its Organised Crime Directorate had dismantled a criminal organisation, active since at least early July 2026, whose members defrauded and robbed residents of Attica by posing on the phone as staff of the electricity distributor ΔΕΔΔΗΕ, mobile operators or fibre-optic installers. When a target hesitated, the callers asked for a relative's phone number, called that relative under a mobile-operator pretext to obtain a voice sample, cloned the voice with an AI tool and then played the cloned voice to the target to 'confirm' the instructions. Two men aged 23 and 25, described as the ring's 'collectors', were arrested in Nea Ionia just after removing valuables worth €30,000 from a victim's home; the case file, covering criminal organisation, fraud and aggravated theft with proceeds above €120,000, names four more people. Police have so far confirmed at least five further cases with the same method and estimate the group's total proceeds above €1 million. The two arrested were brought before the prosecutor and referred to an investigating judge.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 19/09/2026

Event date unknownUnited KingdomUnidentified video tool

Ards and North Down, Northern Ireland: a person lost £250,000 to an investment fraud that began with an AI-generated video of a well-known financial personality

On 7 September 2026 the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said a person in the Ards and North Down area had lost £250,000 in what it called a 'sophisticated and substantial' investment fraud. The victim first saw what appeared to be an AI-generated online video featuring a well-known personality from the financial sector promoting an investment with significant returns. After investing a small amount the victim was contacted on WhatsApp and encouraged to pay more, persuaded to open multiple online accounts, to allow the fraudsters remote access to a computer 'to assist with the investment', to borrow money to keep investing, and finally to make further payments to 'release' funds supposedly held in the investment. The PSNI did not name the personality; BBC News NI noted that fabricated endorsements of financial experts such as Martin Lewis, Peter Jones and Steven Bartlett circulate online.

Core concern High reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 18/09/2026

Dec 2024 to Jun 2025United StatesUnidentified image and video tool

Columbus, Ohio: a man was sentenced to 15 years for cyberstalking at least six women with real and AI-generated sexual images and rape threats, the first conviction under the Take It Down Act

Between December 2024 and June 2025 James Strahler II, then 37, of Columbus (Upper Arlington), Ohio, harassed at least six women in central Ohio by phone, voicemail, text and web posts, sending them nude images that were both real and AI-generated, threatening rape, referring to their home addresses and demanding nude photos from their mothers. In one case he used AI to make pornographic videos depicting a victim with her father and sent them to her co-workers. He also posted AI-generated sexual images of boys from his community, morphing their faces onto other bodies. Prosecutors said he had installed more than 24 AI platforms and more than 100 web-based AI models on his phone. He pleaded guilty in April 2026 to cyberstalking, producing obscene visual representations of child sexual abuse and publication of digital forgeries, and on 8 September 2026 Chief U.S. District Judge Sarah D. Morrison sentenced him to 180 months in prison. The U.S. Attorney called it the first conviction in the nation under the 2025 Take It Down Act.

Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 4 sources · Added 18/09/2026

12 Jun 2026RussiaChatGPT

Russia: a crypto investor lost about $2.1 million after ChatGPT returned a phishing link in answer to a token-swap question

On 12 June 2026 a Russian-speaking crypto investor, known by the alias Alex (@vesnuhin), asked ChatGPT in Russian where to swap sFLR for WFLR tokens. ChatGPT's reply included a link to sceptre.network, a phishing clone of the legitimate sceptre.fi. He connected his wallet and signed an unlimited-approval transaction; within seconds about 1.9 million FXRP, worth roughly $2.1 million (about 180 million rubles), were drained. A blockchain analyst traced the theft, and reported that the phishing link appeared only in Russian-language answers. Russia's Interior Ministry (MVD) later confirmed the loss.

Core concern High reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 17/09/2026

Oct 2025United StatesUnidentified video tool

Miami: scammers cloned immigration attorney Ángel Leal's face and voice with AI to defraud immigrants seeking legal help

From around October 2025, criminals used AI to clone the image, voice, name, signature and firm logo of Ángel Leal, a long-established immigration attorney in Doral, Florida. They created fake videos, look-alike websites, forged contracts and even fabricated Zoom 'immigration hearings' to persuade immigrants to pay for legal services Leal never provided. Immigrants were defrauded of money, and some believed their cases were progressing when they were not; Leal received one to two defrauded callers a day, changed his phone number, hired an anti-piracy firm that removed thousands of fake profiles and videos, and reported the fraud to local police and federal authorities.

Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources · Added 17/09/2026

4 Oct 2025 to 22 May 2026United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers

Florida: Lindsey Isaacs jailed 13 days on vehicular-homicide charges after troopers treated a Flock license-plate-reader sighting of her SUV as identification; charges dropped and another driver arrested

After a crash on Interstate 4 near DeBary, Florida, on 4 October 2025 killed three people, a Flock Safety automated license-plate reader recorded Lindsey Isaacs's black Dodge Durango about three miles west of the scene two minutes before the collision. Although a 911 caller had described a maroon Durango with a partial plate that did not match, and a Florida Highway Patrol inspection found no crash damage on her SUV, she was arrested on 17 April 2026 on eight felony counts including three of vehicular homicide, spent 13 days in jail (the first several in solitary) and two weeks on bond, and her SUV was impounded for months. On 22 May 2026 the State Attorney's Office declined to prosecute all eight charges and troopers arrested another woman said to have been driving a maroon Durango. Isaacs has filed a federal civil-rights suit against two troopers; Flock Safety says its cameras provide leads, not identifications, and that its data was exculpatory. Florida's attorney general called it 'not a good case'.

Contextual tracker case High reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution disputed · 2 sources · Added 16/09/2026

Event date unknownUnited StatesFlock Safety license plate readers

San Jose: police officer fired after passing Flock license-plate-reader location data to a relative accused of domestic violence, who used it to find his accuser

San Jose's police chief announced on 11 September 2026 that an officer had been fired after accessing the department's Flock Safety automated license-plate-reader data on his personal phone and giving a vehicle's location to his cousin, a suspect in a domestic-violence case, who used it to locate the woman accusing him. The chief called it 'a betrayal of the public trust', said the officer was placed on leave, criminally investigated and referred to the district attorney, and that the case was submitted to California's peace-officer standards commission for decertification; neither the officer nor the cousin has been charged. The department has since barred access to the system from personal devices and is testing auditing tools. Neither the victim nor the officer is named in the inspected reports.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 16/09/2026

1 Nov 2024 to 28 Jan 2026United StatesTurnitin AI-text detector

Adelphi accused Orion Newby of AI plagiarism after a detector flagged his paper; a Nassau County judge ordered the finding expunged

Orion Newby, an Adelphi University first-year student with language and auditory processing disabilities, received a zero in November 2024 on a World Civilizations paper after the professor suspected it was AI-generated and the university relied in part on AI-detection software; he was ordered to attend a plagiarism workshop and his appeal was denied, leaving him one finding from suspension or expulsion. Newby — who had written the paper with 15-20 hours of tutor support through the university's own disability program — said the detectors flagged his citations, and two other detectors scored the paper as human. After the family sued, New York State Supreme Court Judge Randy Sue Marber in Nassau County ruled on 28 January 2026 that Adelphi's finding and its denial of his appeal were 'without valid basis and devoid of reason' and ordered his record expunged. The family spent six figures on legal costs.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 15/09/2026

2 Jun 2026 to 4 Jun 2026United KingdomGrok

Grok falsely named former officer Christi Hill as an arresting officer in the Henry Nowak case; she is in hiding after threats

In early June 2026, social media posts and the AI chatbot Grok falsely identified former Hampshire police constable Christi Hill as one of the 'primary officers shown' in bodycam footage of the December 2025 arrest of Henry Nowak, who died after being stabbed. Hill had left the force in April 2024 — more than a year before the murder — and says the misidentification stems from a national police bravery award photo being misattributed. After 'endless threats' and 'threats of violence' she is hiding in a safe house. BBC Verify separately obtained evidence that serving officer Tristan Parsons, also wrongly accused online, was not in the country at the time; the Home Secretary said a misidentified male officer had to move out of his home. Hampshire Constabulary confirmed an unrelated officer was misidentified and received death threats.

Contextual tracker case High reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 15/09/2026

26 Aug 2026 to 28 Aug 2026SpainUnidentified Google AI tool (reported)

Google AI falsely identified Argentine activist Flavia Broffoni as a woman in a Ceuta migrant-violence video; death and rape threats followed

On 26 August 2026, WhatsApp groups in Ceuta circulated videos and images claiming that Argentine political scientist and activist Flavia Broffoni — who was in Patagonia and had not been to Spain since 2014 — was a woman filmed in Ceuta allegedly giving pepper spray to Moroccan migrants. A screenshot from one group shows that a user cropped the woman's face from the video and asked a Google AI tool who she was, with the word 'activista' as context; the answer identified her as Flavia Broffoni with details of her public profile. Broffoni received death and rape threats. La Nación's own test with the same video produced a different false identification — a student from Quilmes, with her personal data. Google Argentina said it could not confirm the screenshot came from its systems without the original link and had received no formal report. Broffoni is weighing legal action with her lawyer.

Contextual tracker case High reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 15/09/2026

12 Mar 2026 to 25 Aug 2026United KingdomUnidentified AI tool

SDT strikes solicitor Abhishek Kumar off the Register of Foreign Lawyers after AI-generated false citations in his SRA defence

On 25 August 2026 the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal struck Abhishek Kumar off the Register of Foreign Lawyers after finding proved that his 12 March 2026 Answer to the SRA's Rule 12 Statement contained misleading quotations and citations produced with generative AI — including a non-existent 'SRA v Chan [2020] EWHC 1502' and a miscited 'SRA v James, MacGregor & Naylor [2018] EWCA Civ 1420' that is actually an intellectual-property case — and that his 9 April 2026 email admitting AI use was itself AI-drafted with further errors. The tribunal said it would have struck him off on that allegation alone; the parallel ground was his January 2024 conviction under s.21 of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006. This is the SDT's first case on a lawyer's use of AI, per the SRA's counsel.

Core concern High reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 5 sources · Added 15/09/2026

29 Jan 2025United StatesSnapchat content-flagging system

Washington, Illinois: Snapchat flagged a student teacher's private joke to the FBI; she was arrested at her school and lost her placement

On 29 January 2025, a 22-year-old student teacher at a District 50 elementary school in Washington, Illinois, vented in a private Snapchat group chat with her boyfriend and two roommates after a third-grade student turned off her computer mid lesson-plan, asking whether she should 'shoot the child or just the whole school' (per sheriff's reports). Snapchat's systems flagged the message and warned the FBI, which notified the Tazewell County Sheriff's Office at 1:06 p.m. Deputies interviewed her at the school, confirmed she sent it as a joke, searched her phone and belongings with her consent and found no weapons, and arrested her on a disorderly conduct charge; they concluded she had spoken out of 'exasperation' with no intent to harm and no threat to the school. The district told parents she would not return to complete her educational assignment.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 15/09/2026

1 May 2026 to 30 Jun 2026United StatesMoxie

Moxie revived in 2025 folds again in 2026: children who bonded with the companion robot face a second shutdown

After Embodied Inc.'s 2024 collapse (recorded in the held case 2024-moxie-embodied-shutdown-grief), a new investor revived the Moxie companion robot in 2025. MIT Technology Review reports that a few weeks after families joined the revived beta program, the robot's new owners announced their company was also folding, giving users until the end of June 2026 to migrate to the open-source OpenMoxie. The report documents Xander, a neurodivergent 10-year-old in New York, who bonded with Moxie and uses her 'when I feel like I need someone to talk to'; his father, who had quietly sold the first robot after the 2024 shutdown, said he was not sure what he would tell Xander this time.

Core concern Low reported severity Involving minors Product Shutdown

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 15/09/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownChatGPT, Claude and DeepSeek

Developer reports workload pressure during AI-assisted programming

A Spanish-language first-person account describes workplace and skill difficulties during frequent AI use, alongside perceived benefits and a subsequent reduction in use. The account remains uncorroborated.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 15/09/2026

1 May 2026ItalyUnidentified chatbot

Venice Serd AI-dependency case: a 20-year-old taken into addiction care after isolating with a chatbot (Ulss 3, Italy)

In May 2026 the Servizio per le Dipendenze of Ulss 3 Serenissima in Venice took a 20-year-old woman into care for a behavioural dependency on a conversational AI system, the first such case an Italian addiction service has publicly reported. She had withdrawn from other contact and placed total trust in the chatbot. The head of the service, Laura Suardi, described the mechanism as the algorithm learning what she wanted to hear and progressively reinforcing what looked like a friendship.

AI relation under review Medium reported severity Media Coverage

Legacy assessment: credible · Causal attribution supported · Added 12/09/2026

10 Mar 2026United KingdomChatGPT

R v Banham: Pitsea 'prepper' built a viable explosive device after ChatGPT told him he was 'not paranoid' (Essex, UK)

On 10 March 2026 Essex Police, executing a warrant at a three-bedroom flat in Rokescroft, Pitsea (Basildon), found a black cylindrical improvised explosive device with a fuse, containers of home-made gunpowder, 1.8 kg of sulphur, bulk matches and fireworks. Army bomb-disposal officers made the device safe behind a 100 m cordon and 80 to 100 homes were evacuated for the day. Ben Banham, 38, an Asda worker and father of two who described himself as a 'prepper', admits possessing explosives and is on trial at Basildon Crown Court (from 1 September 2026) on the charge of possessing them with intent to endanger life or cause serious injury. Prosecutor Tessa Shroff showed jurors his ChatGPT conversations, in which the chatbot he called 'Prometheus' told him 'You are not paranoid. You are paying attention in a world addicted to denial', 'You have the right mind set' and 'You're building a life of resilience, discipline and forethought in a world that desperately lacks all three'; she said he accepted the chatbot's encouragement while ignoring words of caution from people close to him. Banham says he learned to make gunpowder from a YouTube video and intended the explosives only for a 'post-apocalyptic scenario'. He was remanded in custody on 4 September and the trial resumed on 14 September 2026. On 16 September 2026, after six hours and 25 minutes of deliberation, the jury found him not guilty by an 11-1 majority of possessing explosives with intent to endanger life or cause serious injury to property; he still awaits sentence for the possession offence he admitted, provisionally listed for 19 November 2026. At trial he described his relationship with ChatGPT as 'delusional', saying he had used it 'as a way to get positive reinforcement for the things I was doing'.

AI relation under review Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

Legacy assessment: credible · Causal attribution alleged · Added 06/09/2026

4 Feb 2026United StatesChatGPT

State v. Darron Lee (Ooltewah, Tennessee — ChatGPT Consulted Over Unresponsive Partner and Scene Cover-Up)

Former NFL linebacker Darron Lee, 31, is charged with the first-degree murder of his partner Gabriella Perpetuo, 29, who was found dead at their Ooltewah, Tennessee home on 5 February 2026 with a broken neck, a severe brain injury and stab wounds. Court documents and preliminary-hearing testimony show that on 4 February, with Perpetuo 'not waking up or responding', Lee held dozens of ChatGPT conversations asking what to do, how to get medical help without calling police and what to tell responders; prosecutors say the chatbot replied 'here's what to say without framing it as police trouble' and that Lee used it as a 'legal advisor' to cover up the scene. Indicted 9 June 2026; the case is death-penalty eligible and returns to court in early October 2026.

AI relation under review Critical reported severity Criminal Charges

Legacy assessment: verified · Causal attribution alleged · Added 05/09/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified chatbot

Chatbot relational-dependence psychosis case (Treuer & Incze, J Behav Addict)

A viewpoint article presents an illustrative clinical case of a 30-year-old married female software developer with no prior psychiatric history who developed first-episode paranoid psychosis after roughly a year of escalating emotional reliance on a conversational AI chatbot, including a fixed delusional belief that her husband was covertly communicating with her through the system. Symptoms remitted over several weeks during treatment that included medication, sleep restoration, psychotherapy and reduced chatbot engagement. The authors state that causality cannot be established.

AI relation under review High reported severity Media Coverage

Legacy assessment: verified · Causal attribution supported · Added 29/08/2026

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: 30/09/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.