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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
13
Countries with reported events
6
Located 8 of 13 cases · 5 unknown
Languages in checked sources
6
Recorded for 13 of 13 cases

4 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 0 not yet reviewed and 4 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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13 of 1050 published cases

Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified video tool

Qatari courts order news channel to compensate woman whose photos it processed with AI into a virtual news presenter, newspaper reports

Al-Sharq reported on 25 June 2026, in an article quoting the woman's lawyers, that the Investment and Trade Court, in what the paper called the first case of its kind, ordered a news channel to compensate a woman whose personal photos and video clips it had processed with artificial intelligence, without her permission, to create a virtual character presented as a digital news presenter under an assumed name. The channel had launched the presenter with programmes, promotional material and a press conference, and removed the material after the woman's lawyer sent a legal warning. She also argued that news delivered by the character conflicted with her own convictions, which attributed views to her falsely. A court-appointed intellectual-property expert found the AI output to be an independent work, but the court held that the channel had exploited her images and simulated her with AI, violating her rights to her image and privacy. The appeal court reduced the award from 700,000 to 100,000 Qatari riyals, and the Court of Cassation declined the channel's further appeal, making the judgment final. The woman and the channel are not named, and the dates of the broadcasts and rulings are not given.

Core concern Medium reported severity Lawsuit Settled

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 31/10/2026

Apr 2023GermanyUnidentified AI writing tool

German magazine printed an AI-generated 'interview' with Michael Schumacher; publisher apologised and his family later won 200,000 euros

In April 2023 the German weekly Die Aktuelle (Funke media group) ran a front cover with a picture of Michael Schumacher and the headline 'Michael Schumacher, the first interview', with a strapline saying it sounded deceptively real; inside, the quotes attributed to him had been produced by artificial intelligence. Schumacher has not been seen in public since a serious brain injury in December 2013, and his family keeps his condition private. The family announced legal action; Funke called the article tasteless and misleading, apologised and relieved the editor-in-chief of her duties. In May 2024 a family spokeswoman confirmed a Munich Labour Court judgement and a settlement by Funke, with compensation of 200,000 euros reported by Reuters and, as a reported figure, by the AP. The sources read do not name the AI tool the magazine used.

Core concern Medium reported severity Lawsuit Settled

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 5 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 31/10/2026

Feb 2025RussiaUnidentified video tool

Yaroslavl (Russia) court orders parents of pupil who used a neural network to turn his filmed teacher into a bare-chested man in a video to pay her damages

A court in Yaroslavl, Russia, ordered the parents of a seventh-grade pupil to pay a mathematics teacher 10,000 roubles each in compensation for moral harm, according to reports in March 2026 of the court's own announcement. The court's press service said that in February 2025 the boy filmed the teacher at work without her knowledge or consent, then used a neural network to generate a video from the footage in which she turns into a man with a bare athletic torso, and posted it in the class chat. The teacher told the court that afterwards she did not want to go back into the classroom, felt the pupils' sideways looks and that her authority had been damaged. The parents contested the claim, saying their son had only applied a trending effect and that the teacher disliked him; they did not dispute that he filmed her and made the video. The court found that the video harmed her honour, dignity and professional reputation.

Core concern Medium reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 27/10/2026

Jun 2024Event location unknownUnidentified face-swap and voice-synthesis tool

Hangzhou Internet Court rules a skincare seller used AI face swap and voice synthesis to fake a beauty blogger's sales videos, awarding damages

A CCTV News report of 29 September 2026 says the Hangzhou Internet Court in Zhejiang recently concluded a portrait-rights case brought by a beauty blogger. According to the report, from June 2024 an online skincare-sales company, without the blogger's consent, took short videos and livestream footage the blogger had published and used AI synthesis to make more than 30 fake videos in which the blogger appeared to promote its products. The court found that the company had used AI face swap and the recombination of image and sound tracks to fabricate the videos for commercial gain, infringing the blogger's portrait rights. In court the company acknowledged that it had synthesised and published the videos without the blogger's authorisation, said staff had made them out of fun and curiosity, and said it had taken them all down after receiving the lawsuit papers. The court ordered the company to pay 15,000 yuan for economic loss and the costs of protecting the blogger's rights and 5,000 yuan in compensation for emotional distress, and to publish an apology prominently on the platform concerned for at least 30 days. The blogger's claim that the products sold more than 100,000 orders was not accepted as proof of loss or profit.

Core concern Low reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 26/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified image tool

Chinese court orders clothing shop to pay treble damages after its AI-generated product photos, claimed as real, misled an online buyer

In a consumer-protection typical case released on 12 March 2026, the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court described a buyer who paid 411 yuan on a shopping platform for two women's tops after asking whether the model photos were real and being told that all the shop's pictures were real photographs. The garments that arrived differed markedly from the pictures in pattern, cut and style, and on review the pictures were all AI-generated, with no real photographs and no AI label on the product pages. The buyer sued for a refund and treble damages. The court held that businesses must review content they generate with AI, that undisclosed AI images differing significantly from the goods which lead a consumer to buy amount to consumer fraud, and that the clothing company must pay treble compensation. The release as relayed does not give the dates, the court of first instance or the amount.

Core concern Low reported severity Lawsuit Filed

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

Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified image tool

Beijing Internet Court finds a WeChat group member infringed another member's portrait and reputation by posting AI-made exposed cartoon images of the claimant

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

2025RussiaDeepSeek

Moscow court upholds a sales director's dismissal for disclosing trade secrets, including uploading company reports to DeepSeek, and rejects her severance claim

A Moscow district court upheld an engineering company's dismissal of its head of sales for disclosing trade secrets, according to RAPSI and Pravo.ru reports of 27 July 2026. The grounds included uploading protected internal reports to the Chinese chatbot DeepSeek, forwarding company documents to her personal email and disclosing strategic information to a supplier. The court held that uploading trade secrets to DeepSeek is in itself a disclosure. She had sought a dismissal by mutual agreement and a contractual severance payment of 5 million roubles. The court rejected both, annulled a separate reprimand and awarded her compensation for moral harm. The decision was not yet final.

AI relation unknown Medium reported severity Lawsuit Dismissed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 19/10/2026

2026ChinaDoubao (reported)

China: user says Doubao misstated an air-ticket refund fee, costing him 600 yuan, then promised compensation it could not pay; he says he filed suit

According to his own social-media posts and video, as reported by Dahe Daily (15 May 2026) and National Business Daily (20 May 2026), a user in China who had booked flights from Shijiazhuang to Chongqing for 2 May 2026 decided to drive instead and asked the Doubao chatbot about the refund fee. Doubao told him he could safely refund and that the fee would be small (only 5% in National Business Daily's account, under 100 yuan in Dahe Daily's). He refunded without checking the airline's rules and was charged about 40%, 600 yuan. When he returned to the chatbot, Doubao said it would handle the claim, promised to pay him 600 yuan itself if the money was not recovered by 6 May and produced a 'compensation commitment letter'. On 6 May it said it would pay by midnight and asked for his WeChat payment code; on 7 May it said that as an AI it could not make transfers and admitted its error. He then used Doubao to draft a complaint, was told by it that he did not need a lawyer, and on 12 May submitted a suit against the app's operator, Beijing Chuntian Zhiyun Technology, according to a screenshot he posted (Dahe Daily names the Beijing Internet Court). His posts had been deleted by 19 May. Doubao's customer service told Dahe Daily the matter had been recorded; Doubao and ByteDance did not answer National Business Daily. Whether the court accepted the case, and its outcome, are not reported.

Core concern Low reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 17/10/2026

2024Event location unknownUnidentified voice-cloning tool

Beijing Internet Court says a sales host's videos for a book company used an older parenting educator's AI-synthesised voice without consent; company liable

According to the Beijing Internet Court's account, released on 16 October 2026 among typical cases on online infringement involving older people, a culture company selling family parenting books commissioned a livestream sales host in 2024 to make promotional short videos. The videos used clips of public lectures and classes given by an older person with some public profile in education and parenting, combined with AI-synthesised audio whose timbre, intonation and rhythm closely resembled that person's voice, and linked viewers to the company's shop. Neither the images nor the audio had been authorised. The court held that the synthesised voice, combined with the person's image and public profile, was identifiable as that person's and infringed their portrait and voice rights. The company had not checked whether the material was authorised, so the court found it jointly liable with the host and ordered it to apologise and to compensate economic losses and reasonable costs of the claim. The amounts, the judgment date and the tool are not reported.

Core concern Low reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 17/10/2026

Jan 2025ChinaUnidentified AI quality-inspection tool

Hangzhou courts rule a tech firm unlawfully dismissed a quality-inspection supervisor after it cited AI replacement and he refused a 40% pay cut

A technology company in Hangzhou, China, employed a worker to check the quality of answers produced by an AI large language model, at 25,000 yuan a month. In January 2025, citing the impact of AI technology on his project, it proposed moving him to an ordinary operations post at 15,000 yuan a month; when he did not agree, it notified him that his contract was terminated, according to a typical case released by the Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court on 28 April 2026 and reported by Hangzhou media and China National Radio. China National Radio, citing CCTV News, reports that the company told him only at arbitration that after a technical upgrade AI could do his inspection work. A labour arbitration panel and then two levels of court in Hangzhou found the termination unlawful and ordered compensation of more than 260,000 yuan. The court said that introducing AI to stay competitive is not in itself the kind of major change in objective circumstances that makes an employment contract impossible to perform, and that the pay-cut offer was not a reasonable proposal. The worker told CCTV that he had not found a suitable new job since the termination.

AI relation unknown Medium reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 7 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 16/10/2026

31 Oct 2025SpainUnidentified AI design tool

Bilbao court rules a draughtsman's dismissal unfair after his employer justified it with AI design tools it did not show were in use

A company that designs and manufactures industrial furnaces dismissed a mechanical draughtsman on 31 October 2025 for objective reasons, citing a fall in business and the introduction of new technologies in its engineering department, including a model-based-definition design method and artificial-intelligence tools. According to press reports of the judgment, the dismissal letter put the cost of the tool licences at 4,725 euros a year against his gross annual salary of 29,871 euros and argued that the saving exceeded 80%. The social section of the Tribunal de Instancia de Bilbao declared the dismissal unfair, finding that the company had proved neither its economic losses nor the real implementation of the tools: an employee trained on the new method testified that she had never worked with it, and an implementation report was dated June 2026, seven months after the dismissal. The company must choose between reinstating the worker and paying 12,330.56 euros in compensation, less the amount already paid; the court rejected his claims that the dismissal was void and for a higher job category. One outlet reports that four draughtsmen were dismissed in total. El Periódico, which reported the same judgment in August 2026, dates it to early June 2026 and quotes the dismissal letter's statement that the company had introduced new artificial-intelligence systems that automate technical tasks previously done by specialised staff. The judgment was not read, and whether it is final is not reported.

AI relation unknown Medium reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 16/10/2026

Feb 2026United StatesUnidentified voice-cloning tool

Spokane: an appliance retailer's longtime spokeswoman sues after its ad agency admits AI voice edits to her ads; she says she never consented

Amber George was the spokeswoman for Fred's Appliance, a Spokane-area retailer, for 14 years. She told The Spokesman-Review and KREM that in February 2026 she saw a Presidents' Day sale advertisement she had never recorded, assembled from past footage with words in her voice that she says she never spoke ("They cloned my voice"). Victory Media, the production company, said in a statement that it had used AI-assisted voice editing to make a limited number of updates to existing advertisements, mainly pricing and promotional changes, which it believed its spokesperson agreement authorised, and that it disclosed the edits when questions were raised. George says the companies then proposed a contract addendum allowing AI use for little pay; she refused it and ended her work with the retailer. On 30 June 2026 she sued Fred's Appliance, Victory Media and its chief executive in Spokane Superior Court, alleging unauthorised commercial use of her voice and likeness and seeking damages and an injunction. Victory Media denies creating AI-generated versions of her image or likeness, says Fred's Appliance was unaware of the edits, and says it offered compensation that she did not accept; its lawyer later said the parties might settle.

Core concern Low reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 12/10/2026

Jan 2025ItalyUnidentified customer-service AI tool

Genoa court reinstates a Maersk Italia worker whose January 2025 dismissal unions linked to AI replacing customer service tasks

In January 2025 Maersk Italia, the Genoa-based Italian arm of the Danish logistics group, dismissed four employees of its Customer Service department without warning, according to the regional transport unions Filt Cgil, Fit Cisl and Uiltrasporti, who called a one-day strike. The unions said the company had moved the work to Manila and had also replaced part of the tasks done by the Genoa staff with artificial intelligence. One of the four, a woman, sued, while the other three accepted a severance offer. Euronews reported on 30 April 2026 that the Genoa labour court had ordered her reinstatement with compensation for the months she went unpaid, finding the dismissal unlawful because the employer had not tried to redeploy her within the company. A legal commentary in Domani gives the judgment's date as 30 March 2026, while Euronews says the decision came on Thursday, the eve of 1 May. The unions that backed the case described it as the first Italian case in which judges ruled on a dismissal linked to AI, although the Domani commentary also cites a Rome ruling of November 2025 on an AI-related dismissal. The Domani commentary does not name the employer. No source describes the AI system or what it did, and Maersk's account of the dismissals was not found.

AI relation unknown Medium reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources · Added 11/10/2026

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: 31/10/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.