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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
3
Countries with reported events
1
Located 3 of 3 cases · 0 unknown
Languages in checked sources
1
Recorded for 3 of 3 cases

1 case has no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 0 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.

Reported severity MediumLow
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3 of 833 published cases

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

Jan 2026ChinaUnidentified AI search tool

Hangzhou hospital says a man took three times the standard antiviral dose after AI advice gave tablet counts, not grams, and developed acute kidney injury

Zhejiang Provincial Tongde Hospital in Hangzhou told Red Star News (relayed by China News Service on 26 January 2026) that a patient with a cold sore had recently used AI online to look up treatment, bought valaciclovir and took it as advised. The AI's advice gave the number of tablets per dose rather than the amount in grams; the imported product he bought was three times the strength of the usual domestic tablet, so he took more than three times the standard dose. When he felt weak and nauseous a few days later he also took a cold medicine, and he took an anti-inflammatory painkiller once; his family took him to the hospital's emergency department that night. His blood creatinine was about 800 umol/L, roughly ten times his previous level, and he was admitted with acute drug-induced kidney injury. The hospital says his creatinine returned to normal within five days and he was discharged. The AI tool and its exact wording are not identified.

Core concern Medium reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 16/10/2026

12 Aug 2026ChinaUnidentified chatbot

Rescuers say a man who followed an AI app's suggested route up an undeveloped peak near Hangzhou fell, was stranded at night and had to be rescued

On the evening of 12 August 2026 rescuers were called to Tonggongjian, a peak of about 1,558 metres in the undeveloped mountains of Lin'an district, Hangzhou, where a man who had climbed alone had fallen and was stranded at about 1,300 metres. A volunteer rescue team with police and firefighters, and in the fire service's account its firefighters, found him after more than an hour, with abrasions, and escorted him down. Dushi Kuaibao's report of the rescue says the man had argued with his wife, asked an AI app on his phone where to go, and that the app asked about his state of mind, personality, height and fitness before recommending Tonggongjian; the fire service's account says it suggested he go there to watch a meteor shower. The rescue team said he rarely hiked, wore flat skate shoes and carried only a folding stool, and that the recommendation gave no advice on equipment. The app is not named and the exchange is not published.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

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

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: 22/10/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.