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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
11
Countries with reported events
7
Located 10 of 11 cases · 1 unknown
Languages in checked sources
6
Recorded for 11 of 11 cases

7 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 1 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.

Reported severity MediumLow
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11 of 868 published cases

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

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

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

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

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

17 Jan 2026GermanyUnidentified video tool

Lower Saxony CDU parliamentary group employee reportedly posted an AI-generated sexualized video of a colleague in a private staff chat group

Welt, dpa (in Tagesspiegel, news.de and t-online) and a press release of the CDU parliamentary group in the Lower Saxony state parliament report the following. On 17 January 2026 an employee of the parliamentary group posted a short AI-generated video showing a colleague in a sexualized manner in a private WhatsApp group connected to the group's staff. The Hannover public prosecutor's office had viewed the video, and a spokesperson said it was obviously an AI montage. After the group's leaders were informed (on 27 March according to press reports), the employee who created the video was dismissed without notice and a second employee, who had reportedly asked chat members in January to delete the video and keep silent, was suspended. The group informed the prosecutor's office, which said, as reported on 1 April 2026, that it had received no criminal complaint. On 9 July 2026 dpa reported, citing the prosecutor's office, that the Wennigsen local court had fined the former employee, who had made the video with the colleague's picture without consent and shared it in a chat group, 30 daily rates for a violation of the Kunsturhebergesetz, and that the decision is final. NDR reported on 10 April 2026 that the depicted employee had filed a criminal complaint, that the prosecutor's office had received the employee's application for prosecution, and that the employee did not want to comment publicly. The colleague and the former employee are not named.

Core concern Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 30/09/2026

7 Jan 2026 to 9 Jan 2026United StatesGrok

Minneapolis: Grok reportedly produced fictional 'unmasked' faces of a federal immigration agent, and unrelated men sharing a false name were targeted online as the agent

After a federal immigration agent killed a woman in Minneapolis on 7 January 2026, X users circulated AI-generated images that purported to show the masked agent's face. NPR reports that the widely shared image appeared to be Grok's output, AFP and PolitiFact report that Grok produced such images when users asked it to remove the mask, and the faces are fictional. Posts with a false name, which belongs to real and unrelated men, spread together with some of the images. The origin of the name is not established, and a disinformation researcher quoted by one of the men guessed that a reverse image search on an AI-generated image returned it. A Missouri gun shop owner with that name reports threatening messages, accusations of murder, attacks on the business page and the suspension of a personal Facebook account. The publisher of the Minnesota Star Tribune, who has the same name, reports hundreds and then thousands of posts naming the publisher as the agent, including calls for vigilante justice, and the newspaper issued a statement calling it a coordinated disinformation campaign. AFP reports that xAI answered its inquiry with an automated reply. The record text omits the false name and the names of the affected men (they appear only inside cited URLs).

Core concern Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 7 sources · Added 30/09/2026

19 Aug 2026FranceUnidentified AI tool

Rennes administrative court fines a claimant 500 euros for an abusive tax appeal it found manifestly written with an AI tool and too imprecise to assess

According to Gossement Avocats, which quotes the order, and the court's vice-president on France Inter, an order of 19 August 2026 (n°2508168) of the tribunal administratif de Rennes rejected a claimant’s application contesting a VAT reassessment and fined the claimant 500 euros for an abusive application. As quoted by Gossement Avocats, the order says the application had manifestly been written with an artificial intelligence tool and that its grounds lacked the most elementary details needed to assess them. The court also found it inadmissible because no prior complaint to the tax service was shown, and noted that it repeated a request with substantially the same object rejected in October 2025. The court’s vice-president cited the case on France Inter; commentators stress that AI use alone was not the basis for the fine.

Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources · Added 29/09/2026

9 Sept 2026IndiaUnidentified video tool

Bengaluru: a security guard says a WhatsApp video call in which an alleged deepfake 'Chief Minister Vijay' offered him financial aid led to fake 'processing' charges and a fake CBI fine, and he lost more than Rs 1.04 lakh; Byappanahalli police register an IT Act case (September 2026)

A security guard in Bengaluru, originally from Odisha, told the Times of India that on 9 September 2026 he answered a WhatsApp video call in which a face and voice presented as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay introduced himself in Hindi, asked his name, work and where he lived and pressed him to accept financial help. A 'manager' then promised Rs 11 lakh, said Rs 5 lakh had been allotted to him and asked for a Rs 5,000 exchange charge, then Rs 18,000 to unlock a supposedly locked PIN; a caller posing as a CBI officer demanded more than Rs 50,000 as a fine. The fraudsters sent a fake allotment letter and a purported CBI officer's identity proof. He paid more than Rs 1.04 lakh through a digital payment app before refusing a further Rs 50,000 demand, called the 1930 cybercrime helpline and went to Byappanahalli police, who registered a case under the Information Technology Act. The Times of India says the fraudster allegedly used a deepfake AI-generated video and calls it the first such case reported in the city. No arrest is reported, and no link to the Tamil Nadu CB-CID deepfake case or its Alwar arrest has been established.

Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 28/09/2026

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