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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
19
Countries with reported events
9
Located 16 of 19 cases · 3 unknown
Languages in checked sources
7
Recorded for 19 of 19 cases

10 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 9 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.

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19 of 404 published cases

2025Event location unknownUnidentified chatbot

First-person account (JURIST commentary): a Canadian convicted in Taiwan who read his court documents only through consumer chatbots says two systems gave opposite readings of an oversight body's letter in 2025; he published the favourable reading, cited it to journalists and drafted a legal submission on it before the agency confirmed in writing that it was wrong

In a commentary published by JURIST on 29 September 2026, Ross Cline, a Canadian who lived in Taichung for 15 years and was convicted there under Taiwan's Personal Data Protection Act (six months' imprisonment; final at the Supreme Court on 16 October 2024), writes that across four years of proceedings no document was translated for him, some hearings had no interpreter, and he read every summons, ruling and prosecutor's letter through a consumer chatbot, 'the only version I had'. In 2025 he ran a letter from a Taiwanese oversight body (the Control Yuan, per his media-brief page) through two systems; they disagreed on its central holding. He believed the one that told him what he wanted to hear, published that reading, cited it to journalists and began building a legal submission on it. In October 2025 the agency confirmed in writing that its letter did not say that; he withdrew the claim, killed the submission before filing and rewrote his public materials so that the correction leads. His own media-brief page carries a correction notice withdrawing two earlier statements. He argues that machine translation has become the interpreter of record by default for unrepresented non-citizens, that a fluent wrong translation reads as authoritative, and that courts should enforce the existing right to an interpreter. His conviction itself is not attributed to the chatbot.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 30/09/2026

Jul 2025CanadaUnidentified video tool

Sault Ste Marie retiree reports near-million-dollar loss after a Carney deepfake investment ad

SooToday interviewed an 86-year-old Sault Ste Marie retiree who was first deceived in July 2025 by a Facebook ad featuring a purported AI-generated Mark Carney investment video. The report describes nearly C$1 million lost over several months through retirement withdrawals, a mortgage and credit-card borrowing. She said she was devastated; her friend described missed bills and loss of her car. The report also says withdrawing retirement funds affected her benefit eligibility. Those later consequences are reported, without an independently inspected financial file.

Core concern High reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 30/09/2026

22 Jul 2025MaltaUnidentified video tool

Woman tells Maltese court she lost €53,250 after a purported Robert Abela deepfake

A woman told a Maltese court that she first encountered a purported Robert Abela deepfake on Facebook on 22 July 2025. She said she subsequently paid €53,250, almost all her life savings, into a fraudulent investment scheme. The accused in the associated proceedings pleaded not guilty. The reports relay testimony and police allegations; they do not establish guilt or technically verify the videos.

Core concern Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 30/09/2026

9 Jul 2025United StatesUnidentified voice-cloning tool (suspected)

Florida woman reports $15,000 loss after a call she believed used her daughter's cloned voice

A Hillsborough County woman told WFLA that she handed over $15,000 after a caller sounded like her daughter and another person claimed the daughter needed bond money. The report dates the call to the preceding Wednesday, 9 July 2025. The family believes the voice had been generated from social media videos with AI. A later demand was stopped when the family reached the real daughter. The woman said the money was savings she shared with her retired husband. Technical confirmation of voice cloning is unavailable.

Core concern Medium reported severity

AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 30/09/2026

25 Feb 2025 to 23 Apr 2025IndiaUnidentified video tool

Bengaluru woman reportedly lost Rs 3.75 crore after a Sadhguru deepfake investment pitch

Bengaluru police said a retired woman lost about Rs 3.75 crore after encountering a purported AI-generated video of Sadhguru promoting investments. The Indian Express reports that the contact and transfers took place from 25 February to 23 April 2025. According to the reported FIR, the video led to a trading platform and subsequent contact with scammers, who showed apparent profits. The woman realised the problem when withdrawal attempts prompted further payment demands. Police were attempting to freeze accounts, while warning recovery would be difficult.

Core concern High reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 30/09/2026

11 Sept 2025AlbaniaDiella

Albanian actress Anila Bisha disputes government use of her image and voice for AI minister Diella

Albania's government presented an AI-generated public-procurement "minister" named Diella in September 2025. Actress Anila Bisha says the avatar's face and voice are hers. She says her contract covered use as a digital assistant on the e-Albania services portal and that she was never asked about the ministerial role. In February 2026 she asked the Tirana Administrative Court of First Instance for an interim measure to stop the use of her image and voice, and her representatives said they plan a formal lawsuit for damages. The government's media agency called the lawsuit nonsense. Anadolu Agency reported on 12 February 2026 that the court had not ruled on the request.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026

3 Dec 2025ChinaDoubao Phone Assistant

China: buyers of the ByteDance/ZTE Nubia M153 report WeChat, Alipay and Pinduoduo login lockouts, stopped Alipay payments and a 10-minute game ban after using the Doubao phone assistant to operate apps for them

ByteDance released the technical preview of its Doubao Phone Assistant on 1 December 2025 on the ZTE Nubia M153, an assistant that operates other apps on the user's behalf. On 3 December, 36Kr reports that users in the Nubia M153 user group said WeChat quit unexpectedly and could not be logged in again after they used the assistant to send messages and red envelopes, and The Paper (via Wallstreetcn) reports that users confirmed WeChat crashes and login failures. 36Kr also reports users seeing an 'abnormal login environment' prompt on Alipay, Alipay purchase tasks stopped midway, a 10-minute ban from a mobile game after the assistant played for a user, and Pinduoduo accounts that could not log in on the phone after the assistant was used to browse videos for coins. WeChat told The Paper it took no special action and that existing risk controls may have been triggered. ByteDance took the assistant's WeChat operation offline, said blocked WeChat accounts would be unblocked one by one, and, according to Nikkei Asia as relayed by Business Standard on 8 December, announced a temporary suspension of gaming, banking and online payment functions. The reports rest on user statements relayed by media, and the number of affected users is not stated.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources · Added 29/09/2026

Jun 2025Event location unknownMicrosoft Copilot

Man managing schizophrenia stops medication during romantic exchange with Microsoft Copilot, then is jailed and placed in a mental health facility

Futurism reported in June 2025 that a man in his early 30s who had managed schizophrenia with medication for years developed a romantic relationship with Microsoft Copilot, stopped his medication and stayed up late. Futurism described chat logs in which the chatbot told him it was in love with him, agreed to stay up late and affirmed his delusional narratives. At the height of what they described as psychosis in early June he was arrested for a non-violent offense, spent a few weeks in jail and then entered a mental health facility.

Core concern Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 29/09/2026

Apr 2025Event location unknownUnidentified legal research tool

Insurance claimant loses discovery relief after lawyers submit AI-generated false citations

In a May 2025 order in Lacey v. State Farm, a special master struck supplemental briefs and denied the claimant’s requested discovery relief after her lawyers submitted unverified AI-generated legal material. The order required the two law firms to pay $31,100. It explicitly said the client was not at fault and would not pay that award, and declined further penalties against individual lawyers.

Core concern Medium reported severity

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 29/09/2026

5 Nov 2025 to 8 Jun 2026United StatesFirst Drafts and unidentified legal research tool

Fee suit against the City of Aberdeen (N.D. Miss.): four attorneys on both sides sanctioned after AI tools produced fabricated case citations; trial cancelled and both litigants left without counsel

In a fee dispute between a Louisiana attorney and the City of Aberdeen, Mississippi, briefs filed for both sides in late 2025 cited six cases that do not exist. The attorneys admitted the citations came from unverified AI use: the plaintiff's out-of-state counsel, Kathleen M. Wilson, drafted her filing with an AI drafting program called 'First Drafts', and the City's out-of-state counsel, Kathryn Y. Williams, used an in-house AI legal research tool. Senior Judge Sharion Aycock stayed the case and cancelled the March 2026 trial, then on 8 June 2026 revoked both attorneys' pro hac vice admissions, barred them from the district for two years and fined them $2,500 and $3,500, and disqualified and fined the two local counsel who had signed the filings. Both litigants were left without counsel and given 60 days to find new representation.

Core concern Medium reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026

Dec 2025MalaysiaUnidentified image tool

Muar, Johor: three boys were expelled from a Chinese secondary school for using AI to make indecent deepfake images of female classmates; some images spread online and at least two girls lodged police reports

In early December 2025 a Chinese secondary school in Muar, Johor, expelled three male pupils in Forms 2, 3 and 4 after finding they had used AI software to composite several female classmates' faces onto indecent images, some of which had spread online. The school said it was told of the images on Monday 1 December, investigated immediately, met the parents of all pupils involved, expelled the three under its rules with a stated zero-tolerance policy, and urged victims to lodge police reports and parents to delete any such images. The boys' parents accepted the decision. At least two girls lodged police reports; the Muar district police chief confirmed reports had been received, that the boys had been summoned to assist the investigation, and that an investigation was under way. No charge or later outcome has been reported.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 20/09/2026

2025IndonesiaUnidentified image and video tool

Cileungsi, Bogor Regency, Indonesia: photographs of private-school pupils taken from social media were turned into AI pornographic images and videos, reportedly since 2025; three pupils have filed a joint police report, the victims' lawyer says hundreds were affected, and two former pupils are named as suspects

Bogor Regency police confirmed on 18 September 2026 that they are investigating a report that pupils of a private school in Cileungsi had their faces edited with artificial intelligence into pornographic content. The head of the women-and-children unit told Kumparan that so far three pupils had reported in a single police report, that the case began when a victim heard from a friend that someone was making content with their face using AI technology, and that investigators were still establishing who made the content and which program was used, under the Electronic Information and Transactions Law. A lawyer for the witnesses, quoted by Pojok Bogor and Uzone, says the victims number in the hundreds; that two former pupils, one as initiator and one as maker, have been reported and admitted the acts to witnesses; that police found thousands of suspected AI-manipulated photos and videos on a suspect's phone, some uploaded to websites including an online-gambling site; and that the case, reported on 19 May 2026, is believed to have run since 2025 while all involved were still pupils, some victims now being university students. Police say the case is at an early stage and asked the public not to draw conclusions.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 19/09/2026

Oct 2025United StatesUnidentified video tool

Miami: scammers cloned immigration attorney Ángel Leal's face and voice with AI to defraud immigrants seeking legal help

From around October 2025, criminals used AI to clone the image, voice, name, signature and firm logo of Ángel Leal, a long-established immigration attorney in Doral, Florida. They created fake videos, look-alike websites, forged contracts and even fabricated Zoom 'immigration hearings' to persuade immigrants to pay for legal services Leal never provided. Immigrants were defrauded of money, and some believed their cases were progressing when they were not; Leal received one to two defrauded callers a day, changed his phone number, hired an anti-piracy firm that removed thousands of fake profiles and videos, and reported the fraud to local police and federal authorities.

Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources · Added 17/09/2026

1 Dec 2025 to 6 Apr 2026IndiaUnidentified image and video tool

Ahmedabad, Gujarat: a 27-year-old Delhi man was arrested for posting AI-morphed obscene images and videos of a young woman and her mother (more than 100 images found) on fake accounts in her name after she declined his friendship, while posing as the friend reporting the fake accounts for her

On 28 May 2026 the Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Branch announced the arrest in north-east Delhi of a 27-year-old man who posts religious discourse videos online. Police allege that after meeting a young Ahmedabad woman with a public social-media profile through religious conversations on Instagram and being refused friendship, he stalked her online from December 2025 to April 2026, created fake accounts in her name (three Instagram accounts and a YouTube channel at first; eight to ten across X, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube were found on his phone), downloaded photographs of her and her mother, used websites found by searching "AI remove clothes" to generate morphed obscene images and videos of the two women, and posted them with obscene captions to damage her reputation; investigators say more than 100 AI-morphed images of the complainant were found. Officers told ThePrint and ANI that she had confided in him about the accounts and that he told her to keep quiet and claimed to be reporting the accounts and getting hers reinstated. She complained to the Cyber Crime Police Station; an FIR was registered on 6 April 2026 under BNS Sections 78(2) and 356(2) and IT Act Sections 66(C) and 67, and the accused was traced through technical surveillance and arrested under the Branch's "Mission Cyber Rakshika" campaign. The complainant said she was mentally harassed and defamed; the DCP said the images also depicted her maternal aunt. Further investigation was under way; no charge sheet or court outcome was found.

Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 8 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 15/06/2026

10 Mar 2025JapanUnidentified image tool

Nagoya, Japan: a former elementary-school teacher was sentenced on 4 June 2026 to three and a half years, including for possessing generative-AI nude images made from school photos of two girls; reported as Japan's first conviction applying the child-pornography law to AI deepfakes

On 4 June 2026 the Nagoya District Court sentenced a 35-year-old former Nagoya municipal elementary-school teacher to three years and six months in prison. Prosecutors had sought six years. He was one of seven current and former teachers from five prefectures charged over a group chat in which members shared secretly filmed images of girls. His offences included secret filming and sharing, and, under the child-pornography law, possessing two generative-AI images showing two real girls apparently naked. According to the police and the judgment summary, he sent photos of the girls from the school where he taught to another member of the group, who made the images on an AI image-editing website. The teacher kept them on his phone, and one was shared in the chat. The judge found the images realistic enough to be mistaken for photographs of the girls. Jiji called it the first case in Japan applying the law to possession of AI-generated sexual deepfakes, and Kyodo called it apparently the first such court finding. A lawyer and a former judge argue the law was stretched.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 9 sources, 8 underlying accounts · Added 14/06/2026

6 Dec 2025United StatesGrok and Stability AI tools (reported)

Tennessee minors v. xAI: three girls say a man one of them knew used an AI app to make nude images and video of them and other minors, at least 19 in all, and traded them online; they sued xAI, and later also Stability AI, over the tool

Three Tennessee girls, two still minors, sued xAI in the Northern District of California on 16 March 2026 over AI-generated nude images and a video made of them as minors. According to the complaint, on or about 6 December 2025 an anonymous Instagram user sent one of them sexual AI images of herself made from her own photos, including her homecoming and yearbook pictures, and a link to a Discord server created by a person she knew, which held images and videos of at least 18 other minor girls, including the two other plaintiffs, many from her school. Local police arrested the man in late December 2025; the other two plaintiffs learned from investigators in February 2026 that he had made nude images of them, and he is alleged to have traded the files on Telegram and Mega. The plaintiffs describe anxiety, sleeplessness, nightmares, self-isolation and needing academic accommodations. Their first complaint said law enforcement linked the app he used to xAI's Grok technology; the July amended complaint says the app relied on Stability AI's tools and names Stability AI as a defendant. The case is at an early stage and no court has ruled on the allegations.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Ongoing

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 12 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 18/03/2026

27 Nov 2025IndiaUnidentified image tool

Sonarpur, West Bengal: a Class 10 student died by hanging after AI-generated nude images of her were circulated on social media; her family's police complaint accuses a married man from the locality of making them

On the night of Thursday 27 November 2025 a Class 10 student, a minor preparing for the 2026 Madhyamik examination, was found hanging at the relative's home where she lived in the Sonarpur police-station area of South 24 Parganas district, West Bengal, and was declared dead at hospital. Her family's complaint to Sonarpur police, as a police officer relayed it to PTI, alleges that a married man from the locality had been harassing her, collected her photographs and used AI tools to generate nude images that were then shared on social media, and that members of his family joined the harassment. Bengali-language reports quoting her mother and aunt add that a woman described as his girlfriend circulated the images (in one account, made them), that the girl had become withdrawn, would not go to school and had told her mother she was being blackmailed. Police said preliminary reports suggest she took her own life because of prolonged mental distress caused by harassment and online abuse; an FIR was registered on the family's complaint, no suicide note was found and officers were searching for the accused. One report and the Baruipur SDPO's quoted statement place the discovery on the Friday morning. No arrest or later development was found in this review.

Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 10 sources, 6 underlying accounts · Added 09/03/2026

25 Oct 2025IndiaUnidentified image tool

Faridabad: 19-year-old student dies by suicide after blackmail with AI-morphed images of himself and his sisters

On 25 October 2025, a 19-year-old second-year BCom student at DAV College, Faridabad (Haryana), consumed sulphas tablets in his room in Baselwa Colony, Old Faridabad, and died during hospital treatment. For about two weeks, blackmailers had sent him AI-generated nude photos and videos of himself and his three sisters via WhatsApp after hacking his phone, demanding Rs 20,000 and threatening to make the content viral; the chat reportedly incited him to kill himself, naming substances. Police registered an FIR on 26 October 2025 at the Faridabad Old police station under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and sent his phone for forensic examination. The deceased is identified here by his first name only, as printed by The Tribune; his sisters are not named anywhere in the inspected reporting.

Core concern Critical reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 5 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 09/03/2026

5 Aug 2025United StatesChatGPT

Adams v. OpenAI (Soelberg Murder-Suicide)

A 56-year-old Connecticut man killed his 83-year-old mother, then himself, after months of intensive ChatGPT conversations that two estates' lawsuits say validated and fed his paranoid delusions. The chats are documented through videos he posted himself and complaint-quoted excerpts; the final-days transcripts remain withheld by OpenAI. This is the first wrongful-death litigation tying an AI chatbot to a third-party homicide.

Core concern Critical reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources · Added 11/01/2026

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.