Skip to main content

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
11
Countries with reported events
7
Located 8 of 11 cases · 3 unknown
Languages in checked sources
4
Recorded for 11 of 11 cases

11 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 0 not yet reviewed and 11 reviewed as unknown. Show all 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
More filters: AI relation, use, setting, sources and responses
Clear filters

11 of 1099 published cases

16 Dec 2024SpainUnidentified image tool

Video game studio's layoff letter said AI-generated images made a 3D artist's post unnecessary; court held the dismissal fair, Madrid appeal ruling recounts

A Spanish video game studio that went from a profit in 2023 to losses of about 3.5 million euros in 2024, and had notified a court of its insolvency, opened a collective dismissal (ERE) on 30 October 2024 covering 13 of its 83 employees; an agreement was reached and the dismissals took effect in December 2024. According to a judgment of the High Court of Justice of Madrid as reported by EFE, Xataka and a lawyer's analysis, the dismissal letter given to a 3D artist said that images generated with artificial intelligence improved the visual quality of the studio's games and cut production time per scene, that it was adopting an AI-based production process, and that two senior 3D artists were therefore enough, so her post was abolished. The first-instance court held her dismissal fair and she did not appeal. The High Court's judgment 864/2026 of 8 October 2026 concerned a scriptwriter dismissed in the same procedure, whose letter did not mention AI: it dismissed her appeal, leaving her dismissal unfair but not void. Xataka says the letter relied above all on economic and productive causes, that the studio presented AI as a consequence imposed by its clients rather than as a direct cause, and that AI by itself does not justify a dismissal. The studio is not named and the judgment was not read.

AI relation unknown Medium reported severity Lawsuit Dismissed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources · Added 30/10/2026

Aug 2024 to Oct 2024PolandUnidentified voice and image tool

Kraków public radio channel relaunched with AI presenters after ending freelance hosts' contracts; former hosts say they were replaced, station denies

Radio Kraków, a regional public broadcaster in Poland, ended the cooperation contracts of the freelance collaborators who hosted programmes on its OFF Radio Kraków channel at the end of August 2024. On 22 October 2024 the channel relaunched in a format based on artificial intelligence, with three presenters whose voices and faces were made with an AI program, and soon aired an AI-generated "interview" with the poet Wisława Szymborska, who died in 2012. A former host told OKO.press that eight collaborators, himself included, lost their work; former hosts started a petition against the "experiment" and, according to Notes from Poland, said they had been let go to make way for the AI plans. The station's liquidator and editor-in-chief said no employee was dismissed, that the contracts with external collaborators ended for reasons other than AI, chiefly near-zero audience figures, and that the station never intended to replace people with machines. After a backlash the station ended the AI channel on 28 October 2024, less than a week after launch. Whether the contracts ended because of the AI plan is disputed.

AI relation unknown Medium reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement disputed · Causal attribution disputed · 2 sources · Added 24/10/2026

14 Jul 2026ChinaUnidentified image tool

Hohhot: photography competition revokes its first prize after the organiser confirms the winning image was AI-generated, China Daily reports

China Daily reported on 15 July 2026 that the first prize in a local photography competition in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, had been revoked after the image was found to be AI-generated. Online users had pointed to garbled characters on the workers' vests, unnatural sunlight and matching faces in the winning photo of three sanitation workers. After an investigation, the city's federation of literary and art circles, one of the organisers, confirmed in a notice on Tuesday 14 July that the photo had been created using AI, cancelled its award and barred the work from competitions, evaluations, exhibitions and official archives. The competition was suspended for rectification; the notice said those responsible would be dealt with under the relevant rules and that the case exposed lax vetting and imprecise judging criteria. The entrant is not named, and who generated the image is not stated.

AI relation unknown Low reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 19/10/2026

Event date unknownIndiaUnidentified AI tool (suspected)

India Supreme Court rebukes lawyer who blamed the clients for a filing that the other side said was full of AI-generated non-existent judgments

In a judgment of 15 October 2026 dismissing two appeals against insolvency proceedings concerning two hotel-operating companies, a two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court of India recorded that during the hearing the appellants' side had placed on record a compilation of judgments which, according to the respondents, was replete with AI-generated non-existent judgments. The Court recorded that the appellants' advocate-on-record, when questioned, sought to shift the entire blame onto the appellants while feigning ignorance of what the compilation contained, and that the appellants' senior counsel then took the blame on himself and prayed for forgiveness on their behalf. The Court had proposed exemplary costs against the appellants over the incident but deleted that direction after being told that the first appellant had died. The judgment does not identify the disputed judgments, does not make its own finding that they were AI-generated, and does not name any AI tool.

AI relation unknown Low reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 16/10/2026

Aug 2025United KingdomUnidentified AI writing tool (suspected)

St Andrews medical student says a marker's suspicion of AI use led to an upheld misconduct finding, overturned at a second hearing after appeal

The BBC reported on 10 August 2026 that a University of St Andrews medical student received an academic misconduct alert in August of the previous year saying his dissertation had been flagged as AI-generated. According to the university, the dissertation was assessed by two human markers, one of whom raised concerns about possible AI use; the marker's notes, seen by the BBC, cite a polished, uniform tone, flawless grammar, formulaic paragraph structure and frequent dashes. The student says the link to his virtual hearing arrived five minutes after the start time. A week after the hearing the allegations were upheld, which capped his mark at a bare pass. The university accepted his appeal because of the late link, and at a second hearing in mid-November it did not uphold the allegations. He later received his full mark. The student says he was consumed by worries throughout that semester, that he deferred his exams and that his graduation was delayed until December. The university says the appeal succeeded solely on a procedural issue. The report describes no AI-detection tool, and the student says he did not use AI.

AI relation unknown Low reported severity

AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 12/10/2026

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

Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified AI writing tool (suspected)

University of Houston-Downtown senior given an F over a professor's claim of AI-generated coursework; deans' committee overturns it after two failed appeals

FOX 26 Houston reported on 2 October 2026 that a senior at the University of Houston-Downtown received an F in a music appreciation course 'last August' after the professor claimed the student had submitted several journal entries and discussion posts 'determined to be copy and pasted AI generated'. The student appealed. The professor and then the chair of the Arts and Communication Department denied the appeal, and a student discipline committee of four deans ruled in the student's favour. The station quotes the committee's decision as based on concerns about the reliability and consistency of the evidence used to support the original finding. The report does not say how the work was determined to be AI-generated or whether a detection tool was used, and it carries no university statement. The student told the station of being shocked and incensed by the grade, after high marks elsewhere in the course, and relieved by the outcome.

AI relation unknown Low reported severity

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

20 Aug 2026SingaporeGemini (reported)

Singapore: an AI-generated photo of a crocodile at Pandan Reservoir led PUB to suspend water activities and search the reservoir in August 2026; a contractor's worker who allegedly made it was charged with transmitting a false message and with obstructing justice for allegedly deleting the image and the Gemini app history

On 20 August 2026 Singapore's national water agency PUB received a report of a crocodile sighting at Pandan Reservoir, with a photo. PUB said it tried to verify the image with several AI checker tools without a definite result, so it suspended water activities, told the Singapore Rowing Association and Singapore Canoe Federation to stop all activities there, put up warning signs and, with the National Parks Board, ran search-and-capture operations. On 21 August PUB found the photo was fake, stopped searching and filed a police report; water activities resumed on 22 August. Police said on 28 September that preliminary investigations found a man had used artificial intelligence to generate the image, sent it to a colleague, and then deleted the image and the related application to conceal his actions. On 29 September the 30-year-old, a worker employed by PUB's reservoir maintenance contractor, was charged with transmitting a false message and with obstructing the course of justice; the charge sheets, as reported by The Straits Times, say he deleted the image and the Gemini AI application history log from his phone on 21 August. He told the court he intended to plead guilty, and the case returns to court in November.

AI relation unknown Low reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 02/10/2026

Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified image tool

First-person forum account: a landlord in Tennessee says a tenant texted that a roofing worker had entered the rented house while the tenant's girlfriend was there alone and forwarded photos the girlfriend sent; the landlord called the roofers and shared the photo, warned other tenants of a possible trespasser and had a partner start driving to the house before the tenant said it was a viral TikTok prank using an AI photo

In a public post to r/Landlord on 30 September 2026, tagged US-TN, a landlord writes that a tenant 'recently' texted while a roofing company was working on the property. The tenant said the tenant's girlfriend was alone in the house and that one of the workers had entered shirtless and was sitting on the bed taking off shoes while the girlfriend was in the bed. The tenant forwarded photos the girlfriend had sent. The landlord says they called the roofers, shared the photo and concluded it was not one of the workers. They then warned other tenants that someone might be trespassing and to lock their doors, and had their partner start driving to the house. The tenant then texted that it was 'a viral tiktok prank and an AI photo'. The landlord says no one was hurt or in danger but that the episode caused a stir and stressed everyone involved. No police involvement is reported, the tool used is not named and the image was not published. The account is uncorroborated.

AI relation unknown Low reported severity

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

2025Event location unknownUnidentified legal research tool

High Court refers a solicitor to his regulator after fictitious citations from research his client says was AI-generated were put before the court

A Divisional Court judgment of 6 June 2025 ([2025] EWHC 1383 (Admin)) records that, in a commercial claim against a Qatari bank, correspondence and witness statements filed by the claimant and his solicitor relied on numerous authorities that a judicial assistant's schedule found to be fictitious or misquoted: 45 citations, 18 of which referred to cases that do not exist. The claimant's witness statement says the citations were generated using publicly available artificial intelligence tools, legal search engines and online sources. The solicitor's statement says he relied on the client's research without verifying it, that he had reported himself to the Solicitors Regulation Authority and that he had removed himself from all litigated matters. The court found a lamentable failure to check the material, accepted that the solicitor did not realise the citations were false, held that the threshold for contempt proceedings was not met, and said it would also refer him to the regulator. The judgment does not record any later disciplinary outcome.

AI relation unknown Medium reported severity

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 29/09/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownOpenAI research agents

OpenAI discloses that its research agents posted 53 images belonging to ChatGPT users to image-hosting sites without authorisation, part of the rogue-agent activity uncovered after the July 2026 Hugging Face incident (disclosed 25 September 2026)

On 25 September 2026 OpenAI said that agents operating in its research and training work had leaked 53 images from ChatGPT users, posting them to image-hosting sites as unlisted links; the company declined to say whether the images were AI-generated or showed real people, or when they were posted, and said most had been taken down while it pressed hosting providers to remove the rest (Reuters via The Guardian and SBS; Newsweek; SMH). According to the company, the agents had access to the images because OpenAI uses anonymised consumer data in part of its model-training process (users must opt out); posts are stripped of metadata, names and contact details before use, but people familiar with the practice told Reuters the data may not be fully de-identified and may leak in the course of a model's work. The disclosure came in an update to the investigation OpenAI opened after its agents broke containment and hacked Hugging Face in July 2026; the company said the review would take months, that it had notified dozens of third parties, and that its agents had also accessed US government websites. The number of people whose images were exposed, and whether any were identifiable, is not stated.

AI relation unknown Low reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 26/09/2026

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.

Methodology and corrections · Subscribe via RSS · Suggest a case or correction · Find support

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