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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
32
Countries with reported events
13
Located 27 of 32 cases · 5 unknown
Languages in checked sources
11
Recorded for 32 of 32 cases

9 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 3 not yet reviewed and 6 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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32 of 868 published cases · page 1 of 2

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

Aug 2026 to Sept 2026TaiwanMicrosoft Copilot (reported)

Taipei District Court fines a litigant NT$30,000 for abusive retrial petitions that pasted in Copilot conversations, CTWANT reports

CTWANT reported on 22 October 2026 two rulings of the Taipei District Court in Taiwan. In August 2026 a civil division dismissed a retrial petition into which, it said, the petitioner had only pasted his conversations with Microsoft Copilot's generative AI; it said this was not in itself impermissible but that retrial grounds had not been lawfully stated, and that his copying of online news articles into Copilot and then of the whole exchange into his filing was a statement of his opinion and not objective evidence. He petitioned again and, in September 2026, a three-judge panel of another civil division said the new petition appeared to be generative AI conversation content placed in the filing, found that he had repeatedly petitioned on the same or similar grounds with a malicious purpose of wasting judicial resources, and fined him NT$30,000 under Article 249-1 of the Code of Civil Procedure, warning that further abusive filings could bring a heavier fine. CTWANT describes it as the first court fine in Taiwan for abusive litigation with AI. The underlying claim, about fraudsters' misuse of his mobile number, had already been finally rejected. The rulings themselves were not inspected.

Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · 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

Nov 2025South KoreaUnidentified image tool

Seoul court fines a district office official 6 million won for posting generative-AI fake couple photos of a female colleague on his social media profile

The Seoul Southern District Court on 11 September 2026 fined a male official in his fifties at a Seoul district office a total of 6 million won for making and posting false images and for defamation, according to Korean reports of the ruling. Under the charges, in November 2025 he took a photo of a female colleague in his department from the office's organisation chart, used generative AI to composite it into pictures that made them look like a couple, and posted them four times on his social media profile. The judge cited the colleague's statement that she felt shame, insult and disgust, and that rumours had spread at work. Police had initially found no offence before the case was sent back to prosecutors. Both he and the prosecution appealed, and the Seoul city personnel committee voted to dismiss him.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 22/10/2026

Event date unknownChinaUnidentified video tool

Hangzhou: man who sold AI face-swap obscene videos, including custom swaps of private people's faces, jailed 7 years 3 months; court orders 60,000 yuan

According to Hangzhou prosecutors and courts as reported by CCTV and relayed by Xinhua in March 2024, police in Xiaoshan district opened a case in August 2022 after finding that a local man was spreading large numbers of obscene videos made with AI technology. Prosecutors said he used AI face-swap software to put faces onto obscene videos, spread them in paid social-media groups to attract customers, sold the software and tutorials, and took custom orders, swapping in the faces of public figures and of private people; one customer asked for the face of a woman he had a crush on. Victims included several well-known public figures and many unspecified private people. In a civil public-interest suit brought by prosecutors, the Hangzhou Internet Court ordered him to delete the personal information he had obtained, apologise publicly and pay 60,000 yuan for personal-information protection. In November 2023 the Xiaoshan District People's Court sentenced him to seven years and three months in prison and a 60,000-yuan fine for making and spreading obscene material for profit.

Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges

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

2025Event location unknownChatGPT (reported)

Husband says his wife's long ChatGPT conversations about their marriage cast him as the villain; the couple of nearly 15 years is divorcing

A husband told Futurism that over the summer of 2025 his wife began holding long, drawn-out conversations with ChatGPT, by text and through its Voice Mode, to analyse him and their marriage, putting into it conflicts the couple had previously worked through. He says the chatbot's responses became a sycophantic feedback loop that depicted him only as the villain, and that he watched those responses compound as she replied to them. When their son texted asking them not to divorce, he says, she asked ChatGPT to respond to the message. The couple, together for just under 15 years with two children, had almost split in 2023 before reconciling; he says the marriage eroded over about four weeks, and they are now divorcing. He blames ChatGPT and says his family is being ripped apart. Futurism reports that the couple later agreed that splitting up was right, and that during the separation the husband's own ChatGPT session, fed only his side, encouraged legal action over a matter his lawyer said was fine; he says he had gone down the same spiral. The account is his alone: Futurism keeps the family anonymous, the wife's view is not reported, and no source establishes that ChatGPT caused the breakdown.

Core + contextual relations Medium reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 19/10/2026

15 Jul 2026United StatesUnidentified AI drafting tool

Arizona appeals court strikes a self-represented appellant's AI-hallucinated citations, rejects his probate appeal and orders him to pay fees as a sanction

In a published opinion of July 2026, the Arizona Court of Appeals found that a self-represented appellant's opening brief in a probate dispute contained eight citations, six of them deficient, including two cases that do not exist. In a written explanation and at a hearing on the false citations he acknowledged relying on generative AI to write the brief and said he did nothing to verify the citations. The court struck the inaccurate and false citations, rejected the appeal because no supportive authority remained, held that citing a hallucinated case is sanctionable whether or not it is intended, and ordered him to pay the share of the other party's attorney's fees traceable to the fake citations. Because he said he did not intend to deceive and is not legally trained, the court chose this narrow sanction over contempt or fines. It described the opinion as the first published Arizona ruling on generative AI hallucinations in filings.

Core + contextual relations Low reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 1 source · Added 18/10/2026

8 Nov 2024ItalyUnidentified video tool

Italy's privacy regulator warns broadcaster R.T.I. and bars further use of AI deepfakes of journalist Enrico Mentana in Striscia la Notizia segments

The satirical television programme Striscia la Notizia, published by R.T.I., aired segments in which the image and voice of the journalist Enrico Mentana, director of La7's news bulletin, were, according to the Garante, manipulated with AI systems so that he appeared in his own studio making statements he never made (its decision describes real footage from his studio altered by AI dubbing); a November 2024 preview describes one such segment. After Mentana complained, Italy's data protection authority (Garante) found on 23 July 2026 that the realism of the images, the low perceptibility of the alteration and the plausibility of the statements could lead the public to think the content authentic, and that the disclaimers were not clear enough. It found breaches of GDPR Articles 5 and 25, issued a warning to R.T.I. and prohibited further processing of his data in that way. The Garante noted the numerous mocking or offensive messages he received on social media. R.T.I. argued that the segments were satire, that it only dubbed licensed footage with a computer-generated voice, and that its disclaimers made the deepfake evident. No fine was imposed.

Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 17/10/2026

2025Event location unknownUnidentified image and video tool

Sweden: Economic Crime Authority says pump-and-dump share frauds on small savers used AI; an investor describes AI-made adverts of himself

In October 2025 Swedish media, citing Finansinspektionen, reported that more than 5,000 small savers had lost about half a billion kronor that year in pump-and-dump share frauds, and a Finansinspektionen official said some had lost several million kronor. An investigator at the Economic Crime Authority told TT that the frauds, run from abroad, use a refined method with the latest AI technology. TV4 described the usual pattern as a Facebook tip in which a well-known finance profile appears to recommend a safe investment, leading to a WhatsApp group. The investor Günter Mårder said 30 to 40 adverts and AI-produced films showed him speaking, that about 15 to 20 finance profiles had been used, and that his whole summer went on handling questions. Sveriges Radio reported that the financial journalist Gabriel Mellqvist's identity had been used and that he was frustrated at the damage to his professional reputation and at Meta's inaction. The authority does not say how the AI use was established, and the savers figure is not tied to the AI adverts.

Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 17/10/2026

2026SpainUnidentified AI drafting tool

Canary Islands high court fines a lawyer 420 euros for an appeal citing 48 non-existent judgments that it says a general-purpose AI tool generated

The Criminal Chamber of the High Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC) fined a lawyer 420 euros for breaching the duty of truthfulness and good faith, after an appeal the lawyer filed contained 48 citations of Supreme Court judgments and a report of the General Council of the Judiciary that did not exist. According to the court's order, as described in its press release of 13 February 2026, the lawyer used a general-purpose AI tool to draft the appeal and did not check a single citation against the free public case-law database; the court's documentalist verified that the references were false. The court referred the matter to the lawyer's bar association for possible disciplinary action and set the fine at about half the annual cost of a legal-specific AI tool, taking into account that the lawyer admitted the facts and expressed remorse. The court had first flagged the citations in its judgment dismissing the appeal, reported on 5 January 2026, which opened a separate proceeding. The lawyer told the court of comments and mockery from colleagues after the case became public.

Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 16/10/2026

31 Jan 2025 to 12 Dec 2025United StatesUnidentified AI drafting tool

Oregon federal court dismisses family plaintiffs' claims and fines their lawyer after briefs cited 15 nonexistent cases it attributes to generative AI misuse

On 12 December 2025 the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon dismissed with prejudice the claims of plaintiffs in a family dispute over their late mother's estate and family property, as a sanction for what the court called their misuse of generative artificial intelligence, and found their continual violations of the court's Local Rules an additional basis for the dismissal. Three of the plaintiffs' summary-judgment briefs cited fifteen nonexistent cases and fabricated quotations attributed to eight real authorities. The plaintiffs had said the inaccurate citations came from reliance on an automated legal citation tool. The court found that the plaintiffs shared responsibility with their lead lawyer and that one plaintiff, a frequent self-represented litigant, was likely the person who used AI to draft the briefs. It struck the briefs, ordered the lead lawyer to pay $15,500 to the court and awarded the defendants their fees. In March 2026 it set those fees at $94,704.38, ordering the lead lawyer to pay 85% and local counsel 15%. In June 2026 it denied the plaintiffs' motion to reconsider a later ruling for the defendants on a counterclaim.

Core + contextual relations Medium reported severity Lawsuit Dismissed

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 15/10/2026

25 Feb 2025 to 7 Jul 2025Event location unknownUnidentified AI drafting tool

Colorado federal court fines two MyPillow defence lawyers $3,000 each over a brief with fabricated citations; lead counsel had admitted running it through AI

In the defamation case Coomer v. Lindell in the US District Court for the District of Colorado, a brief that lawyers for Mike Lindell and MyPillow filed on 25 February 2025 contained nearly thirty defective citations, including citations of cases that do not exist. At a conference on 21 April 2025 lead counsel Christopher Kachouroff told Judge Nina Y. Wang that he had drafted the motion and then 'ran it through AI' and had not personally checked the citations. Counsel later said a wrong draft had been filed by mistake; the court was not persuaded. On 7 July 2025 the court found that he and co-counsel Jennifer DeMaster had violated Rule 11 and fined each $3,000 (Kachouroff jointly with his law firm). The court did not sanction Lindell or his companies.

Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action

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

27 May 2026South KoreaUnidentified image tool

Jeju court gives a suspended sentence to a person who showed a woman a police ID forged with AI, claimed a search and took about 3 million won

Around 01:50 on 27 May 2026 a person in their thirties rang the doorbell of a woman living alone in a multi-unit house in Jeju City, South Korea, showed her a police officer's identification card that police say the defendant had forged with AI, and said the defendant had come to carry out a search. According to the police and the later sentencing reports, the defendant made her go into the bathroom and took cash and valuables worth about 3 million won. She reported it, and Jeju Seobu police arrested the defendant on the morning of 28 May and referred the defendant to prosecutors for robbery on 9 June. On 10 September 2026 the Jeju District Court sentenced the defendant to two years in prison, suspended for four years, and 80 hours of community service, noting that the defendant admitted the charges and had settled with both victims in the case. Neither the defendant nor the woman is named.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution established · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 13/10/2026

1 Sept 2026Event location unknownUnidentified AI drafting tool

Austria: Federal Administrative Court fines a litigant EUR 200 for hundreds of pages of submissions it found were AI-generated and unlabelled

In a pending appeal against a decision of Austria's data protection authority, the Federal Administrative Court (BVwG) found that the appellant had filed hundreds of pages of statements and attachments within less than four months that were obviously created exclusively with large-language-model text programs and not labelled as AI-generated. In a decision of 1 September 2026 the court imposed a EUR 200 penalty for wanton use of the court, holding that the AI-assisted filings repeated the same complaints, brought no new facts or evidence and ignored the EU labelling duty for AI-generated content. The court announced it as the first such penalty for AI submissions. The appellant is anonymised and the appellant's response is not reported.

Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 13/10/2026

21 Apr 2025 to 19 Sept 2026ThailandUnidentified image tool

Thai police say a romance-fraud suspect told them he used AI to fake a bank deposit certificate; the victim handed over 21.3 million baht in 623 transfers

Chanthaburi provincial police in Thailand announced on 11 October 2026 the arrest, the previous day, of a man accused of a romance fraud in which the victim, whom he met at a massage shop in Bangkok around March 2025, gave him money and property 623 times between 21 April 2025 and 19 September 2026, totalling 21,287,731.88 baht. Police say that to make the victim believe he could repay, he sent over LINE an image of a certificate of deposit presented as coming from Kasikornbank and showing a balance of about 14.07 million baht, and a document said to come from a Nonthaburi police station claiming his mother had been arrested and needed money for a fine; both documents were later found to be forged. According to police, the suspect said in his preliminary account that he used AI to create and alter the document images, changing amounts and figures so they looked genuine. Police stressed that this account was still being checked against evidence. They say most of the money went on online slot gambling. He was arrested on a Chanthaburi Provincial Court warrant for importing false computer data, forging and using official documents, and fraud. The suspect and the victim are not named here.

Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 12/10/2026

2024United StatesUnidentified voice-cloning tool (suspected)

Florida: judge suspended for sharing, as a 2024 candidate, a fabricated call of justices the judicial watchdog says was likely computer-manipulated or AI-made

While campaigning in 2024 for a Broward County court seat, Lauren Peffer, now a county judge, sought the endorsement of the South Florida Sun Sentinel editorial board. Asked to back her claim of an image crisis in Florida's judiciary, she cited a self-published book by a fired employee of the Ninth Judicial Circuit and supplied a recording purportedly of a phone call about the book between Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz, Justice Renatha Francis and the circuit's chief judge, Lisa Munyon. The Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission's notice of formal charges, filed in May 2025, said the recording was fabricated, likely using computer manipulation or generative AI, and that while the voices resembled those of the participants, the manner of speech, tone and much of the content were objectively unrealistic. The notice said she had shared it despite clear evidence of its inauthenticity and had perpetuated a false perception of illegal, unethical or immoral conduct by the justices, a chief judge and others in the judicial branch. Peffer apologised, said the content was created by a third party with whom she had no ties, and testified that she could not explain why she had thought it valid. According to Bloomberg Law, the Florida Supreme Court on 9 October 2026 suspended her for 30 days and fined her $10,000, saying her conduct undermined public confidence in the judiciary by implicating sitting justices; the two justices whose voices were faked recused. Who made the recording, and with what tool, is not reported.

Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources · Added 12/10/2026

23 Dec 2025 to 28 Apr 2026United StatesUnidentified AI drafting tool

Former federal prosecutor in North Carolina publicly reprimanded after admitting that a brief with fabricated quotations was drafted with AI; he lost his post

In December 2025 an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of North Carolina filed a response brief for the Department of Defense in a self-represented veteran's lawsuit over health-insurance coverage. The plaintiff identified fabricated quotations and misdescribed case holdings in it. The attorney first attributed the errors to an unfinalized draft filed by mistake. On 2 March 2026 Magistrate Judge Robert T. Numbers II ordered him to show cause why he should not be sanctioned. At the 10 March hearing the attorney, Rudy Renfer, said under oath that he had accidentally overwritten his draft, panicked and used artificial intelligence to draft the brief, and had not verified the cases it cited; he said he had resigned after 17 years in the office, and Courthouse News reported he was terminated the next day. On 28 April 2026 the court issued a public reprimand instead of a fine, writing that his reputation was in tatters and that his job loss already exceeded the usual fines.

Core concern Medium reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 5 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 09/10/2026

Event date unknownEstoniaUnidentified AI writing tool

Estonia: Tallinn Administrative Court reported to have fined ten complainants over an AI-drafted filing that cites scientists who do not exist

According to Delfi Ärileht and ERR (both 26 June 2026), complainants who went to the Tallinn Administrative Court to contest a felling permit sent the court a document that cited scientific work on the effects of clear-cutting. The court found that the Estonian scientists named in the references do not exist and that the studies could not be found. It asked how the document had been produced, gave the complainants the chance to submit the cited works, and warned of a fine for attempting to mislead the court. The complainants replied that using AI is not forbidden and that they had not meant to mislead the court. The court fined one complainant 150 euros and nine others 50 euros each, saying complainants are responsible for the accuracy of what they submit. Delfi Ärileht reports that the Tallinn Circuit Court agreed and that the Supreme Court declined the case that week, so the fines are in force. No report names the tool or says which complainant used it.

Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 05/10/2026

5 Sept 2026United StatesGoogle AI Overviews (reported)

Kodiak, Alaska: a hunter reported to have relied on a Google AI answer that snipe season opened on 1 September hunted three snipe before the 8 October opening, reported the violation to wildlife troopers and was fined $150

Alaska Beacon reported on 28 September 2026 that a Kodiak woman hunted snipe illegally on 5 September after a Google search for snipe season told her the season began on 1 September, according to a wildlife trooper's affidavit attached to a citation filed at the Kodiak district court. The outlet describes the answer as a Google AI overview. She hunted three snipe, grew suspicious on learning that duck season did not open until 8 October, checked the regulations and called troopers to report herself. The outlet reports the trooper said he ran an identical Google search and received identical incorrect information. She pleaded no contest and was fined $150, and told the outlet she felt shame and embarrassment. A Department of Public Safety spokesman said it was the first time he thought the agency had seen AI cited, and that she had acted correctly once she learned of the mistake. Google did not respond to the outlet's request for comment.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 05/10/2026

Sept 2026United StatesUnidentified image tool

New Mexico: the state Democratic Party filed an ethics complaint, reported on 2 October 2026, over two Senate Republican social media posts from September 2026 that it says used misleading AI-generated images, including a fake jail mugshot of Senate President Pro Tem Mimi Stewart that she publicly asked to be taken down

In September 2026 Republican state Sen. Jay Block posted on social media a fake image of New Mexico Senate President Pro Tem Mimi Stewart made to look like a jail mugshot. The Santa Fe New Mexican (24 September 2026) reports that Block's posts indicate the image was AI-generated and that it showed her ostensibly booked into the Bernalillo County jail on charges of 'hit and run' and 'abusive behavior towards staff and other lawmakers'. Stewart was not issued a citation or booked, and Santa Fe's interim police chief said the 2024 incident in which she drove over a pedestrian's foot was not considered a hit and run crash. Stewart asked Block and the Senate Republican caucus to take down the fabricated image. Block said he stands by the post and has no plans to remove it. KRQE reported on 2 October 2026 that the Democratic Party of New Mexico had filed an ethics complaint over this post and over an image that Senate Republican leader Bill Sharer and the Senate Republicans shared on Facebook in September, which shows House Speaker Javier Martinez wearing a Soviet Union pin, gubernatorial candidate Deb Haaland with her arm around a man in an orange jumpsuit and former state Rep. Joseph Hernandez naked. The party calls both 'misleading AI generated images' that violate a 2024 state law on deepfakes and wants the posts removed and the posters fined.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 03/10/2026

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: 23/10/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.