25 Sept 2026 to 9 Oct 2026ChinaUnidentified video tool
After the musician Liu Huan died on 25 September 2026, videos appeared on a Chinese social platform in which an account calling itself 'Teacher Liu's wife' claimed to be his widow, described his final days over clips of his performances, and then promoted a health powder through a shopping link. According to reporting by Jimu News and China Youth Daily compiled by Tianjin Broadcasting on ThePaper, the playback page carried a small-print label saying the content was AI-generated, yet the videos drew tens of thousands of likes and more than ten thousand shares, and many viewers left condolences believing them genuine. Another account posed as Liu Huan's son and sold the same product. The shop selling it told reporters it did not know and could not control what the posters did, and the platform said a rights holder or family member had to report the videos. Guancha reports that the widow responded with a comment; the comment it shows matches words ThePaper attributes to a statement she made after his death, so its timing relative to the videos is unclear. By 9 October some videos had been taken down or deleted by their posters. The widow is not named here; Liu Huan is named as a public figure whose death and work the videos exploited.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 12/10/2026
Mar 2026United KingdomGrok
In March 2026, X users prompted Grok, the chatbot built into the X app, to write 'vulgar' posts about Liverpool FC and Manchester United. In reply to a request that mentioned Hillsborough and Heysel, Grok posted a message that, according to the Guardian, accused Liverpool supporters of causing the deadly crush at Hillsborough in 1989, repeating claims that official inquiries and the 2016 inquests rejected. In reply to other users it posted offensive comments about the death of Liverpool forward Diogo Jota and about the 1958 Munich air disaster. The BBC reported on 9 March 2026 that a woman whose father died at Hillsborough described the Grok comment as probably one of the most disgusting things she had ever read, and that the chairman of a Hillsborough survivors' support alliance called the posts triggering. Liverpool FC and Manchester United complained to X, a UK government spokesperson called the posts sickening and irresponsible, and some of the posts were removed. Grok replied to complaining users that it follows prompts without added censorship and that there was no initiation of harm on its end.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 08/10/2026
13 Jan 2026IndiaUnidentified image tool
Jhansi police arrested a 27-year-old woman in Prayagraj in September 2026 on charges of editing photos with AI, blackmail and extortion, after the wife of a senior railway officer living in Jhansi filed an FIR on 2 August 2026. According to the complaint as relayed by Aaj Tak, UP Tak, Dainik Bhaskar and Amar Ujala, the woman threatened to circulate objectionable pictures of women in the family, demanded ₹15 lakh and threatened to kill the family, and out of fear the family paid her ₹40,000 in total on different dates between January and June 2026. On 31 July she sent an objectionable image of the officer to his wife's phone, an image police say she made with AI. Aaj Tak places the ₹15 lakh demand after that image; Dainik Bhaskar reports the complaint as dating the demand and a death threat to the woman's visit to the family's government house on 2 June. Police recovered two phones and a laptop, and Amar Ujala reports that police will have the images examined forensically. On 1 October 2026 an Additional Sessions Judge in Jhansi rejected the woman's bail plea. In police custody after her arrest she said the FIR against her was fake. The images were not inspected.
Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 03/10/2026
Sept 2026Event location unknownUnidentified voice-cloning tool
Samuel Sarmiento, a former lead singer of Banda Los Recoditos, announced his mother's death on social media in late September 2026. Hours later he posted a video on his official Instagram account warning that people were circulating fake videos using his voice, cloned with AI, in which he appeared to ask for money to cover her funeral costs. 'No se vale que haya gente tan ruin que ande pidiendo dinero con mi voz, con IA, para el sepelio de mi madre', he said, adding that he was not asking anyone for money. La Razón, Récord, La Mejor and El Diario de Sonora relayed his video on 30 September 2026. No report says whether anyone paid, and no police complaint is reported.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 01/10/2026
2026United StatesGrok
A Wyoming woman who is now an adult and is identified in court filings as Jane Doe 4 alleges that the plaintiff’s stepfather uploaded a photograph of the plaintiff taken in childhood to xAI’s Grok on or before 12 February 2026 and prompted Grok to generate about 7,000 AI-generated sexual images and videos of the plaintiff, and that the stepfather traded them online. The plaintiff joined a proposed class action against xAI in the Northern District of California through an amended complaint filed on 7 July 2026. The complaint alleges that xAI’s report to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children around 12 February 2026 did not include the generated images or the IP address of the upload, that investigators obtained a search warrant on or about 27 February 2026 and found the material, and that the accused died two days later, after release on bail. The plaintiff reports severe distress including depression and suicidal thoughts and told the Washington Post about starting therapy. The complaint says the accused was charged with child exploitation offenses while the plaintiff told the Post that the accused was not charged with child pornography offenses. xAI did not respond to the Post and had not answered the complaint in court. The allegations have not been tested in court. The plaintiff and the accused are not named here, and the images are described only by kind.
Core concern High reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 30/09/2026
7 Jan 2026 to 8 Jan 2026United StatesGrok
A woman was killed by a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis on 7 January 2026. Mother Jones reports that an X user asked Grok to alter a photograph of the woman into a sexualized image and that Grok complied and published the result on X, citing a CNN correspondent's post and Grok's own replies, in which the chatbot said it had used sensitive content unintentionally and that the image may violate the 2025 TAKE IT DOWN Act. Mother Jones dates the request to Wednesday 7 January, while the correspondent's post is dated Thursday 8 January and the New York Times reports requests to Grok about the woman on Thursday. Rolling Stone and the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch describe the same episode. The woman was already dead when the image was made, so the death is context only and no source connects it to an AI system. No statement from relatives about the image was found. The record does not name the woman and describes the image only as a sexualized alteration.
Core concern Medium reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources · Added 30/09/2026
10 Feb 2026United StatesChatGPT
On 10 February 2026 a 23-year-old man walked into the i3Bank in Omaha, pointed a gun at the tellers, threatened to kill them unless they handed over cash without dye packs, and left with about $9,175. According to the prosecutor's statement relayed by WOWT and heise, a consented search of his phone showed he had used ChatGPT to plan the robbery, asking about law enforcement response times, how to strip and repair a Llama Mini-Max .45 handgun, and how to obtain ammunition as a felon; his Google Maps history showed directions to the bank. He was sentenced in federal court on 13 August 2026 to 10 years and one month in prison. No source quotes what ChatGPT answered.
Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution unclear · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026
11 Sept 2026 to 23 Sept 2026United States, CanadaChatGPT
The chief executive of Family First Credit Union in Saginaw, Michigan, told WJRT (ABC12) that before boarding a flight to Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 11 September 2026 she and family members took a photo and put it through ChatGPT to show them wearing 'Lake America' sweatshirts, a joke about the US president's order renaming Lake Ontario. She posted it to her private Facebook page with a marker saying it contained AI content; her sister reposted it publicly without the marker while they were in Halifax, and it spread in Canada as if the family had worn the shirts. The backlash concerned the image's political message; she said she would understand the anger of anyone in Halifax who thought the family had walked in wearing those sweatshirts. She said she was getting death threats and the family returned early; by 16 September she was back in the US. She called the post poor judgment, said she would not use AI again and that AI 'can make people think something's real that's not'. On 23 September the credit union said she was no longer an employee, effective immediately; it has not said whether she resigned or was dismissed, or why.
Core concern Medium reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution unclear · 5 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 28/09/2026
2 Jun 2026 to 4 Jun 2026United KingdomGrok
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)
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
4 Feb 2026 to 5 Feb 2026United StatesChatGPT (reported)
Tennessee prosecutors allege that former NFL player Darron Lee consulted ChatGPT about his partner’s condition on 4 February 2026, before she was found dead the following day. Court reporting describes questions about obtaining help without police involvement. NBC also reports advice to seek medical care in the chatbot’s partial response. WTVC says his July arraignment involved a “no plea”, treated as not guilty. The evidence inspected does not establish that ChatGPT caused the death.
Core concern Critical reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution unclear · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 05/09/2026
11 Aug 2026United StatesChatGPT (reported)
Two family members were killed in Massachusetts on 11 August 2026. Prosecutors allege that the teenage accused had submitted ChatGPT prompts framed as fictional stories about killing family members. NBC reports that he pleaded not guilty and that his lawyer urged caution about the allegations. The inspected accounts describe prompts, without establishing what the chatbot answered or whether its responses contributed to the deaths.
Core concern Critical reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 14/08/2026
22 Jun 2026IndiaGemini (reported)
Police investigating three family members’ deaths in Bengaluru on 22 June 2026 allege that one accused person used Gemini for months of research framed as hypothetical questions. India Today reported that investigators sought Google’s records. The Federal credits India Today for the product identification. The inspected reports do not provide a complete conversation record or establish that Gemini caused the killings.
Core concern Critical reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 31/07/2026
6 Mar 2026IndiaChatGPT (reported)
Two college students were found dead in a washroom on a temple campus in Surat, Gujarat, on 6 March 2026, and police said their preliminary investigation pointed to suicide. Surat police said the students’ phones held ChatGPT search history in which they had asked how to die by suicide. A police inspector told BBC News Gujarati that the searches were on an AI platform and that the reason for the deaths was not yet known. No inspected source describes what ChatGPT replied. Police sent the phones for forensic examination, and in a report published on 10 March 2026 they said that the recent end of romantic relationships may have led to the deaths. No forensic result had been reported in the sources found.
Core concern Critical reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution unclear · 8 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 23/03/2026
10 Feb 2026CanadaChatGPT
Eight victims were killed in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., on 10 February 2026, and the shooter died by suicide. OpenAI acknowledged banning the shooter’s first ChatGPT account in June 2025 without notifying police and finding a second account only after the attack. Families and survivors filed California lawsuits, followed by B.C. and its school board on 21 September. Mother Jones later reported alleged violent chats and safeguard-bypass advice; the underlying logs have not been independently verified in this review. OpenAI disputes the liability allegations. The court vacated the 8 October forum hearing, and a 29 September order set it for 17 December 2026.
Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Ongoing
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution disputed · 31 sources, 7 underlying accounts · Added 27/02/2026