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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
3
Countries with reported events
2
Located 3 of 3 cases · 0 unknown
Languages in checked sources
5
Recorded for 3 of 3 cases

1 case has no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 0 not yet reviewed and 1 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.

Reported severity CriticalHighLow
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3 of 404 published cases

19 Jun 2026United StatesTesla Full Self-Driving

Katy, Texas: Tesla Model 3 with Full Self-Driving (Supervised) engaged crashes into a home and kills a 76-year-old woman, and NTSB preliminary data indicate the driver overrode the system with the accelerator

At about 8:03 p.m. on 19 June 2026 a 2025 Tesla Model 3 left a residential street in Katy, Texas, and crashed into a house at more than 70 mph. A 76-year-old woman inside the house died and the driver sustained minor injuries. The driver told deputies and first responders that the car was on Autopilot or in self-driving mode. The NTSB preliminary information (15 July 2026) states that the driver had engaged Full Self-Driving (Supervised) and that data recovered from the vehicle indicated the driver manually overrode it by pressing the accelerator pedal to 100% before the crash. A Tesla vice president said the same in a post on X on 22 June. The Harris County Sheriff's Office arrested the driver and charged the driver with manslaughter (reported 2 July), and the affidavit alleges the driver accelerated to an excessive speed, did not brake, and that investigators found no mechanical malfunction. The victim's family sued Tesla and the driver, alleging that Autopilot and Full Self-Driving were defective and that the car either failed to detect the end of the street or experienced sudden unintended acceleration, and the lawsuit alleges that another person in the home was injured. The NTSB has not determined a probable cause and NHTSA opened a special crash investigation. Whether the driver-assistance system contributed to the crash is disputed.

Core concern Critical reported severity

AI involvement disputed · Causal attribution disputed · 11 sources, 6 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026

19 Jun 2026 to 13 Aug 2026BrazilChatGPT and OpenAI moderation

São Gabriel da Palha, Espírito Santo: a 36-year-old farmer was held in pre-trial detention for 54 days after OpenAI reported his ChatGPT messages about killing his eight-year-old son to the FBI, which passed them to Brazilian authorities; a court released him on 13 August 2026 because the investigation had not been completed, with an ankle monitor and a ban on contacting the child, and no charges had been filed; he denies intending harm and his lawyer says he was talking nonsense to a chatbot

Over about two months in 2026 a 36-year-old farmer in rural São Gabriel da Palha, Espírito Santo, exchanged messages with ChatGPT that the Espírito Santo civil police describe as plans to kill his eight-year-old son, attack other people and kill himself; one message said he had offered 50,000 to someone to kill him and his son. OpenAI reported the messages to the FBI, which passed them through Brazil's Ministry of Justice cyber-operations laboratory to the state police on 16 June; the man was arrested on 19 June as he left home, a day before the date on which police believed the plan would be carried out. Police say what the platform provided was corroborated at the scene (four bottles of unidentified substances and a knotted rope were found) but that he denied intending to kill the child; his lawyer says he was talking nonsense to a chatbot and took no concrete step. After 54 days in custody a court granted habeas corpus on 13 August 2026 because the inquiry had not been concluded and no charges had been brought, imposing electronic monitoring and a ban on approaching or contacting his son and the child's mother. Police were still examining his phone and awaiting forensic results. OpenAI provided user details and his messages but not ChatGPT's replies and did not answer the BBC's question why; it told the BBC it may notify law enforcement when it detects a credible and imminent risk of harm to others. The case is recorded as an institutional response to AI use: the reported adverse consequence is the detention without charge, and the police account that the report prevented a planned killing is preserved as context.

Core + contextual relations High reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 23/09/2026

5 Sept 2026 to 20 Sept 2026United StatesUnidentified video tool

Texas: State Rep. Vikki Goodwin, the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, filed a sworn complaint with the Travis County Sheriff's Office on 19 September 2026 alleging that two campaign ads posted on Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's X account used AI-generated video of her saying things she never said; the posts were deleted the next day, her campaign says, and Patrick's campaign calls them obvious parody

On Saturday 19 September 2026 Vikki Goodwin, an Austin state representative running against Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, filed a complaint with a notarised affidavit at the Travis County Sheriff's Office accusing Patrick of violating Texas's 2019 election deepfake law, after his campaign posted two ads (5 and 12 September, on his non-government X account) containing AI-generated videos of her. In the affidavit she stated: 'I did not personally do or say the things depicted in the video; although the "person" in the video appears to be me, it was not actually me', and that the video was posted 'with the intent to deceive Texans, injure a candidate, or influence the result of an election'. She told KUT the ads made it look as though she favoured raising taxes, which she says she opposes in every campaign speech. The sheriff's office confirmed receipt of the complaint without further comment. Patrick's campaign spokesman told the New York Times the material was 'an obvious parody produced to entertain' and that none of it was published within 30 days of the election; the posts were taken down the day after the complaint, according to Goodwin's communications director. Goodwin said she doubted the sheriff's office would follow up now that the posts were removed. A conviction under the law is a class A misdemeanour.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution disputed · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 22/09/2026

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.

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