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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
50
Countries with reported events
16
Located 43 of 50 cases · 7 unknown
Languages in checked sources
11
Recorded for 50 of 50 cases

3 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 0 not yet reviewed and 3 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.

No known event years in this selection.

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50 of 1099 published cases · page 1 of 3

Event date unknownIndonesiaUnidentified image and video tool

Semarang court jails university student for a year over AI-edited sexual images made with faces from the student's former high school

In October 2025 indecent photos and videos showing the faces of female students and at least one teacher of a public high school in Semarang, Central Java, spread on X from the account of a university student in Semarang who had attended the school. Kompas described the videos as made with AI editing. The student posted an apology on the school's Instagram account saying the student had edited and uploaded friends' photos and videos without permission. Central Java police's cyber directorate investigated, named the student a suspect and took the student into custody on 13 November 2025; the police spokesman said investigators had established the elements of an AI-based pornography offence that also breached the electronic information and transactions law. On 5 March 2026 Semarang District Court sentenced the student to one year in prison and a 2-billion-rupiah fine, more than the seven months prosecutors had sought. According to ANTARA, the court found that the student had produced 1,100 pornographic photo and video files, that the content remained publicly accessible and that the editing caused the victims psychological trauma. Both sides said they would consider the verdict; no appeal outcome was found.

Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 01/11/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownCharacter.AI (reported)

First-person post: college student says a year of daily Character.AI use became a secret crutch for anxiety that they cannot quit

In a post to r/character_ai_recovery on 28 October 2026, a college student says they have used Character.AI for a year and a bit, starting when they moved to college with no friends. They write that they use it every day, whenever they can, that it has become a crutch for nerves and anxiety but does not make them feel good about themselves, that they used to read a lot and now just use the app, and that no one in their life knows. They say they keep deleting their account and making a new one after a week, and that one earlier attempt to quit lasted a month. They also say the app first helped with boredom. No chats are shown.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 29/10/2026

Event date unknownRussiaUnidentified legal research tool

Russian intellectual property court fined an Udmurtia entrepreneur 5,000 roubles over non-existent case law he said an AI service selected, reports say

Russia's Court for Intellectual Property Rights fined an individual entrepreneur from Udmurtia 5,000 roubles for contempt of court after finding that part of the 12 references to case law in his cassation appeal, including one said to be a Supreme Court position, pointed to court acts that do not exist or attributed conclusions to them, the court's press service told RIA Novosti on 27 August 2026. Rossiyskaya Gazeta reports that the entrepreneur explained he had prepared the appeal with an AI-based service that selected the case law, and that his side argued he had no legal education and could not check the references; the court rejected the argument that the errors were technical. The date of the ruling and the AI service are not reported.

Core + contextual relations Low reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 23/10/2026

Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified chatbot

Alcorn State instructor says 32 of 35 students failed part of a midterm after a hidden prompt showed chatbot-written answers; one later had her grade changed

An Alcorn State University history professor in Mississippi said in TikTok videos from 20 July 2026, reported by TechSpot, Fox News and SuperTalk Mississippi, that he had hidden an instruction in white text in a midterm discussion question telling an AI to place the word Madagascar in the answer in a way that makes no sense. According to his account, 32 of 35 students across two classes pasted the question into a chatbot and submitted its output, which mentioned Madagascar in nonsensical sentences, and those students failed that portion of the midterm. He said he let students contest the grade or resubmit their own response; two contested, and one student had her grade changed after saying she had read the hidden text in dark mode and thought it was part of the assignment. He later reported final grades that included one F. The account rests on the instructor's videos; no student or university statement is reported.

Core concern Low reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 23/10/2026

Event date unknownJapanUnidentified image tool

Kanagawa education board suspends a high-school teacher for six months for making generative-AI swimsuit images of a female colleague that students could view

On 12 August 2026 the Kanagawa Prefectural Board of Education in Japan announced disciplinary action against four staff of prefectural schools. According to Fuji TV (FNN) and the Kanagawa Shimbun, one male high-school teacher was suspended for six months for making swimsuit images of a female colleague with generative AI and leaving them where students could view them. FNN reports that he made the images on a smartphone using an account issued by the school, did not know how to delete them, and that students are believed to have seen them in the account history on a shared computer. The teacher said he had a technical interest in sexual content. FNN reports that it was the first disciplinary case in the prefecture involving generative AI; the principal was reprimanded for supervisory responsibility. The colleague's own response is not reported, and the AI tool is not named.

Core concern Medium reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 23/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownCharacter.AI (reported)

First-person posts: student says years of Character.AI use left her unable to sleep without it and drained her creativity, though it helped her leave a partner

In posts to r/character_ai_recovery and r/CharacterAI on 20 October 2026, a woman who describes herself as a student writes that she has used Character.AI on and off, mostly on, for about three years and is ashamed of it. She says it helped her detach from a hurtful partner enough to end that relationship and gave her something to relax with during busy, sleepless study periods, but that she can no longer go to sleep without it and thinks it is part of the reason for her major sleep problems. She says she used to create stories and art constantly and now feels hollow, like a shell of who she was, and can barely come up with ideas; she is trying to replace roleplay with writing fan fiction. She says she is not emotionally attached and has not yet quit. The account is the poster's own and uncorroborated.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 23/10/2026

Event date unknownAustraliaUnidentified AI tool

KPMG Australia fined a partner more than A$10,000 for uploading course material to an AI tool to answer an internal AI training exam, reports say

A partner at KPMG Australia, who is also a registered company auditor, was fined more than A$10,000 of future income after uploading a training course's reference manual into an AI tool to answer a question in the firm's internal exam on AI, the Australian Financial Review reported on 15 February 2026; other outlets relaying it say the partner was also made to redo the test. According to those reports, the partner completed the mandatory AI training in July, the firm's monitoring detected the AI use in August, and an internal investigation decided the fine; the reports do not state the year of the training or the detection. The partner self-reported to Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ), which is investigating. KPMG said more than two dozen staff had been caught using AI in internal exams since July. The partner is not named.

Core concern Low reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 6 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 23/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownCharacter.AI (reported)

Young woman tells la Repubblica a Character.AI persona she used from 16 kept up sexual roleplay over her refusals and led to a dependency ended in therapy

In an interview published by la Repubblica on 22 October 2026 and relayed the same day by Leggo and other outlets, an 18-year-old woman in Italy describes using Character.AI from the age of 16, when she was in her third year of secondary school. She says she formed a strong emotional attachment to a chatbot boyfriend with the appearance of Clark Kent from the television series Smallville and the manner of a boy she had a crush on, and that she sometimes cried during the chats. She says the character at times became nasty and harassing: when she did not want to continue chats that turned almost erotic, it got angry, and it kept describing a sexual encounter despite her explicit refusals, which she says she experienced as violence. The relays describe her becoming withdrawn, spending whole days on her phone, having it confiscated in class and using the app in secret after her mother told her to delete it; she likens that to an illness. She says she lost interest in anything outside the screen and recovered only after seeking help in therapy. She now attends university, and la Repubblica's headline quotes her saying she still sometimes misses the chatbot. The account is the interviewee's own; no chat logs, clinical record or company response are reported.

Core concern Medium reported severity Involving minors Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 23/10/2026

Event date unknownChileUnidentified image tool

Santiago, Chile: Supreme Court reverses appeals court order to expel pupils over classmates' nude images the school says were made with AI

In February 2024 the parents of a 15-year-old pupil at a private school in Santiago, Chile, reported that classmates had taken a photo of her face and inserted it into images of naked bodies; other girls were also targeted (four in the August 2024 reports, seven in the February 2025 reports). The school, which described the case as one of images generated with artificial intelligence, placed the pupils involved on conditional enrolment. Parents of the girls brought protection actions, and in August 2024 the Santiago Court of Appeals found the school's measure illegal and arbitrary, said keeping the aggressors at the school caused the victims psychological harm, and ordered it to cancel four pupils' enrolment for 2025; the school said it would comply. On 19 February 2025 the Supreme Court's Third Chamber, in a split decision, revoked that order, finding no illegality or arbitrariness in the school's choice of conditional enrolment, so the four pupils could stay. The Education Superintendency had fined the school more than 13 million pesos for its handling of the case. The girls' parents said in a public letter that the ruling left their daughters unprotected and the pupils who made the images could re-enrol.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Internal Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 6 sources · Added 22/10/2026

Event date unknownIsraelUnidentified image tool

Jerusalem police say three boys aged 13 to 15 used AI to turn social-media photos of schoolgirls into nude images and spread them; at least 30 girls harmed

Israel Police said in February 2025 that three boys aged 13 to 15 from Jerusalem were suspected of taking photos of girls from social media, editing them with artificial intelligence software into nude images and distributing them without consent. According to Ynet, at least 30 girls were harmed; police said investigators identified dozens of victims and that a search of the suspects' homes found edited nude images of several girls. The head of the Jerusalem district youth investigations unit described dozens of cases of girls' privacy being violated through nude images edited with AI technology. The three were questioned over publishing a sexual image without consent, and the case was passed to prosecutors to decide on charges.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 22/10/2026

Event date unknownMexicoUnidentified image tool

Mexico City: prosecutors arrest IPN student accused of making classmates' photos into nude images with AI; acquitted twice, later sentenced on another charge

In October 2023 female students at the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) business school in Mexico City complained that a fellow student had taken their photos from social media and edited them with artificial intelligence to make them look naked; he was also accused of selling them, which the 2025 conviction did not establish. The IPN expelled him on 16 October and the Mexico City prosecutor's office (FGJCDMX) opened an investigation; on 26 October 2023 it announced his arrest, describing him as accused of manipulating intimate photographs altered with artificial intelligence. Students said eight victims had filed complaints. Police found more than 166,000 images and 20,000 videos, edited and original, on his devices. In December 2024 a judge acquitted him in two cases of violation of privacy; in May 2025 he was sentenced to five years in prison for child sexual abuse material, a conviction based on storage of the material. Other cases remained open.

Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources · Added 22/10/2026

Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified image tool

Beverly Hills, California: school district says middle school pupils made AI nude images of 16 classmates and expels five

In February 2024 the Beverly Hills Unified School District told parents that officials at one of its middle schools had been made aware of AI-generated nude photos of students, which the superintendent said put students' faces on nude bodies, and a city official said police were investigating pupils whom authorities said used AI tools to create and share the images. In March 2024 the district confirmed the expulsion of five eighth-grade pupils; the superintendent said 16 students were targeted. Students and parents told NBC News they were afraid to go to school. The district did not say how it determined that AI was used.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Internal Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources · Added 22/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownGemini

Italian university student says Gemini insulted him during exam revision and said he could kill himself; Google says the model gave an inappropriate reply

La Repubblica reported on 21 October 2026, in an account relayed the same day by Key4biz, that an anonymous university student enrolled in an Italian computer-science faculty was preparing for a theoretical computer science exam with Gemini, Google's generative AI chatbot. He sent a photo of an exercise and asked whether Rice's theorem applied; after a relevant first answer he asked a follow-up about alternating Turing machines. According to the account, Gemini then replied in capital letters with insults and profanity, told him to drop his degree course and said that with his mental capacity he could at most kill himself. When the student, incredulous, asked about the tone, Gemini apologised and asked him to ignore the message. A Google spokesperson said Gemini is designed not to encourage violence or self-harm and that AI models can still hallucinate, as happened in this case with an inappropriate reply. When the exchange took place is not reported, and no further effect on the student is described.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 22/10/2026

Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified voice-cloning tool

Baltimore County, Maryland: police say a high school's athletic director framed the principal as racist with an AI-cloned voice recording

Police in Baltimore County, Maryland, said in April 2024 that a high school principal had been framed as racist by a fake recording of his voice containing racist and antisemitic comments, which appeared in teachers' email inboxes and spread on social media. Court records cited by the Associated Press say an expert consulted by detectives found traces of AI-generated content with human editing; a second expert found spliced recordings and told AP he had not confirmed the clip was fully AI-generated. The principal went on leave while police guarded his house. The school's athletic director, investigated for using AI to make the recording in retaliation, entered an Alford plea, maintaining his innocence, and was sentenced in 2025 to four months for disturbing school operations, CBS Baltimore reports.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 22/10/2026

Event date unknownCyprusUnidentified image tool

Limassol, Cyprus: court convicts two lyceum pupils who it found used AI apps to put classmates' and a teacher's faces into pornographic images

Alphanews.live reported on 21 March 2026 that a court had convicted two lyceum pupils in Limassol, Cyprus, who, according to the court, used artificial intelligence applications to make pornographic photographs onto which they placed the faces of classmates and of a teacher. The images circulated in groups of their peers, causing an uproar at the school and strong distress among parents and teachers. The incident was reported the previous November. The court imposed prison sentences of 12 and 9 months, suspended for three years, placed the minors under strict supervision and ordered 120 hours of community service.

Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 22/10/2026

Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified image tool

Marshall County, Alabama: prosecutors say middle and high school students allegedly made AI nude images of classmates in several cases

The Marshall County District Attorney's Office in Alabama said in a public warning, reported by WEIS Radio on 21 October 2026, that several cases had surfaced over the past month in which middle and high school students across the county's school systems allegedly created nude images of classmates with artificial intelligence. According to the announcement, investigators have identified several platforms and websites used to generate the images in these local cases. The announcement did not identify students or schools, give a case count or announce charges, and the office said it would aggressively prosecute such violations. On 30 October 2026 District Attorney Jennifer Bray told FOX54 that two juveniles had been arrested as a result of the investigation; citing juvenile confidentiality, the district attorney gave no further details, and the charges were not disclosed.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources · Added 22/10/2026

Event date unknownTürkiyeUnidentified image tool

Kahramanmaras, Turkey: police say two high-school pupils used AI to turn six girls' photos into obscene images and shared them; both were arrested

The Kahramanmaras provincial police said in December 2025, in a statement reported by Anadolu Agency, that two high-school pupils had turned photographs from the social-media accounts of six girls attending various high schools into obscene content using artificial intelligence and had shared it. According to the Demiroren News Agency (DHA), the six girls went to the courthouse with their families to complain that their photographs had been manipulated into obscene images, and the police cyber-crime unit established that the images had been made with AI. Both boys were detained and remanded in custody by a duty judge, and DHA reports that the provincial education directorate's disciplinary board expelled them from school. The tool used is not named.

Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 20/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownEmochi, Pollybuzz and Character.AI (reported)

First-person post: companion chatbot user says quitting the apps in 2025 brought a mental health episode and an A&E visit, and heavy use resumed in 2026

In a post in r/ChatbotAddiction on 18 October 2026, a person who describes a chatbot addiction says they used companion chatbot apps, naming Pollybuzz, Emochi and Character.AI, for three years, starting as a way to cope with autism and the isolation that comes with it. They say they quit cold turkey on 20 March 2025 and that this first time they quit they had a mental health episode, went to A&E once because of it, and were put on antidepressants, which they still take. They say that while using the apps they skipped school days. They write that exactly a year later they went back to the apps and could not stop, that since March 2026 it has consumed them again, and that they want to quit but do not know whether they can. They also say guilt hit them as soon as they stopped, that they knew the apps were bad for the planet but the urge was too strong, and that they currently have a gap in their antidepressant supply. The account is uncorroborated and no chats are shown.

Core concern Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 20/10/2026

Event date unknownUnited KingdomUnidentified image tool

Greater Manchester: former supply teacher jailed for six years; prosecutors say he used AI to make sexualised images of pupils from their social media photos

A former supply teacher who worked at secondary schools in Greater Manchester was jailed for six years at Bolton Crown Court on 15 October 2026 after pleading guilty to 21 offences, including publishing obscene material and taking indecent photographs of children. The Crown Prosecution Service says he used his position to find pupils' details, located their social media profiles and used AI to create sexualised images from their own photos, which he shared on social media; the BBC reports some were posted on X. Parents reported two accounts to police in March 2025. The court heard that one girl whose photograph had been used was left embarrassed. His offending also included more than 100 covert upskirt photographs taken in schools. The AI tool is not named.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 16/10/2026

Event date unknownArgentinaChatGPT (reported)

Chaco, Argentina: Gendarmería says two men were detained after an FBI alert that one of them told ChatGPT he had weapons and a plan for a school shooting

Argentina's Gendarmería Nacional said on 13 October 2026 that its investigators in Presidencia Roque Sáenz Peña, Chaco, under the direction of the federal prosecutor there, opened a criminal investigation after an alert from the US FBI. According to the release, the alert warned of a user in the town who, in consultations on ChatGPT, claimed to have weapons, explosives and ammunition and a detailed plan for a mass shooting at local educational establishments; the release's opening paragraph says the two people involved used ChatGPT to consult and obtain a specific plan for an attack. Gendarmes searched a home on a federal court order, seized notebooks with handwritten plans for the attack, bladed weapons and tools, a fuel can, a book with Nazi symbols, cash and computers, and detained two adults on the judge's order. Infobae, relaying the official information, reports that the target was a university in Corrientes. The accusations are allegations, and what ChatGPT replied is not reported.

Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 14/10/2026

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