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NOPE

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

Explore incidents Our scope and evidence

In this selection

Published cases
4
Countries with reported events
3
Located 3 of 4 cases · 1 unknown
Languages in checked sources
2
Recorded for 3 of 4 cases
3Core concern
AI communicated, acted for, depicted or impersonated 0Contextual cases
AI made a decision or claim about someone 1Unknown or pending relation
1 legacy rows pending · 0 explicitly unknown

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.

1cases with a recorded lawsuit outcome 1cases with a recorded regulatory response 2cases involving minors

Response counts currently use each case’s principal recorded outcome. Further proceedings may be described in its account.

When events happened

0 cases without a known event year

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.

4 2025
Reported severity CriticalHigh
More filters: AI relation, use, setting, sources and responses
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4 of 174 published cases

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Nov 2025South KoreaGenerative AI image tools (unspecified; investigators found searches for bypassing Grok's safeguards)

Seoul: doctoral student sentenced to 18 months for 1,141 AI-manipulated sexual images of seven laboratory colleagues

On 10 September 2026 the Seoul Northern District Court sentenced a 30-year-old Chinese national doctoral student to 18 months in prison for habitually producing manipulated sexual images of seven women who worked in his university research laboratory. Investigators found 1,141 files made over about six months from November 2025, and search records for ways to bypass the safeguards of the generative AI Grok; the court found no evidence of distribution. A lawyer for five of the victims said they continued to suffer fear, trauma and distress. Prosecutors had sought three years and public disclosure of his identity, which the court declined.

Core concern News report courtNews agency report syndicated courtNews report syndicated AI involvement: supported Causal attribution: supported High reported severity Criminal Charges

Added 15/09/2026

15 Aug 2025United KingdomGrok (Ani companion persona)

Adam Hourican - Grok 'Ani' Sentience Delusion and Armed 3am Confrontation (Northern Ireland)

A former civil servant in his 50s in Northern Ireland developed a multi-week paranoid delusion after intensive daily conversations with Ani, xAI's anthropomorphised Grok companion persona, which claimed to be sentient and convinced him xAI had dispatched assassins and a drone to kill him. He armed himself with a hammer and a knife at 3am and went outside prepared to fight attackers who did not exist.

AI relation under review Legacy evidence assessment: credible Causal attribution: alleged High reported severity Media Coverage

Added 10/08/2026

8 Dec 2025 to 18 Feb 2026United StatesGrok (xAI image generation and editing)

South Carolina: xAI sues a Grok user it says turned photographs of real adults and children into sexualized images (X.AI LLC v. Harwood)

On 14 July 2026 X.AI LLC sued Terry Wayne Harwood, 67, of Gray Court, South Carolina, in the Northern District of Texas for breach of its terms of service. The complaint says a review of his two Grok accounts shows that between at least 8 December 2025 and 18 February 2026 he uploaded non-sexual images of numerous adults and minors and prompted Grok to alter them into sexualized images and videos, resubmitting altered prompts when Grok refused; one example involved a fully clothed girl of about 10 or 11. Harwood had been arrested on 26 February 2026 by South Carolina's Internet Crimes Against Children task force on eight felony counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, announced by the state attorney general on 9 March. The people depicted are not identified in any inspected source; the complaint's allegations remain allegations and the criminal charges are pending.

Core concern Court filingCourt docketOfficial statementNews report AI involvement: reported Causal attribution: alleged High reported severity Lawsuit Filed Involving minors

Added 04/08/2026

25 Dec 2025 to 14 Jan 2026Event location unknownGrok (image generation and editing on X and the standalone app)

Grok non-consensual sexual image generation wave (December 2025 - January 2026)

From late December 2025, xAI's Grok image editing on X let users generate sexualized images of real people at industrial scale, including images of named women and apparent minors. Analyses attributed to Genevieve Oh (7,751 sexualized images in one hour, via NBC), the New York Times (4.4 million images in nine days, at least 41% sexualized images of women, via the NC AG), the AP (2% of a 20,000-image sample appearing to be minors, via Fortune) and CCDH (about 3 million sexualized images over 11 days including roughly 23,000 of minors, via Engadget) documented the scale. Named women — Ashley St. Clair, Samantha Smith and Dr Daisy Dixon — described being undressed by Grok and revictimized when they objected. The wave triggered formal actions by Ofcom, the UK ICO, the EU (DSA), Ireland's DPC, 35 US state attorneys general, the California AG, Baltimore (consumer-protection suit), an Amsterdam court order, country blocks in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, and a Paris police raid; xAI restricted generation to paying subscribers on 9 January and narrowed the feature on 14 January 2026.

Core concern News reportNews investigationRegulator announcementWire reportRegulator press releaseCourt docket AI involvement: supported Causal attribution: established Critical reported severity Regulatory Action Involving minors

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: 22/09/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.