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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
7
Countries with reported events
1
Located 6 of 7 cases · 1 unknown
Languages in checked sources
2
Recorded for 7 of 7 cases

2 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 1 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 HighMedium
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7 of 392 published cases

Event date unknownEvent location unknownChatGPT

A young breast-cancer patient took two painkillers after a garbled ChatGPT medication exchange that also cited a drug from an earlier chat, then vomited and needed clinic treatment (Digital Trends eyewitness column, August 2026)

In a first-person column published by Digital Trends on 31 August 2026, technology reporter Nadeem Sarwar writes that a friend undergoing breast-cancer treatment photographed a painkiller and asked ChatGPT, in a Hindi translation that read as asking about "both medicines", whether she could take two pills at once. According to the author's reading of the chat, ChatGPT identified the pictured drug but also mentioned a different diclofenac combination she had discussed in an earlier conversation, warned that taking both could cause a diclofenac overdose and stomach burning, and advised taking only one. Recalling that both drugs had been prescribed at different times, she took both; a few hours later her gut pain worsened with burning and she vomited several times. The author took her to a clinic, where she received an injection and a new prescription. Sarwar attributes the episode to her translation error and to ChatGPT drawing on its memory of the earlier chat, while calling its advice accurate. The account has not been independently verified.

Core concern Medium reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution unclear · 1 source · 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

Sept 2026IndiaUnidentified video tool

India: AI deepfake videos of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Vijay offering 'financial assistance' were used to defraud people in Madhya Pradesh and other states; a Rajasthan man was arrested

In 2026 AI-generated videos showing a simulated Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay speaking in a fabricated Hindi voice circulated on Facebook and other platforms, urging viewers to contact a WhatsApp number to receive money for education, medical treatment and other needs. The Tamil Nadu Crime Branch-CID detected the videos during routine monitoring, registered a case on 1 September 2026 under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Information Technology Act, and traced the scheme to Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. On 12 September a 28-year-old man from Alwar district was arrested with Rajasthan Police, brought to Tamil Nadu on a transit warrant and remanded in judicial custody; a phone, SIM cards and a CPU were seized. Investigators traced a man in Madhya Pradesh who had lost money, and said people in several states were cheated. The CB-CID is also examining similar videos posted from Facebook accounts suspected to be run from Pakistan.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 18/09/2026

27 Mar 2024IndiaUnidentified voice-cloning tool (suspected)

Kanpur seller reportedly transfers money after alleged AI voice impersonation

Hindi reporting describes a seller transferring INR 100,000 after an impersonation call. A quoted police assessment treats AI involvement as preliminary. The transfers and AI attribution remain independently unverified.

AI relation unknown Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 15/09/2026

30 Jan 2024IndiaUnidentified voice-cloning tool

Aligarh parent reportedly transfers money after an alleged AI voice-impersonation call

Hindi reporting describes a parent in Aligarh transferring INR 400,000 after callers impersonated police and used a voice presented as his son’s. Police reportedly stopped INR 86,000. The AI attribution and transfers have not been independently verified here; final net loss is unknown.

AI relation under review Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 15/09/2026

1 Jul 2025 to 30 Jan 2026IndiaUnidentified image tool

Indore: an engineer was arrested at the end of January 2026 for a seven-month campaign of posting morphed obscene images of a woman and her sister, with threatening letters, to their relatives and neighbours and pasting posters near their home after the family rejected his marriage proposal; one Hindi report attributes the morphing to AI, citing a police forensic finding (Times of India, Free Press Journal, Patrika, NewsTak, 30-31 January 2026)

Indore police said at the end of January 2026 that the crime branch had arrested an engineer working as a data analyst after a woman complained at Banganga police station in July 2025 that an unknown person was mailing letters with abusive content and morphed nude photographs of her and her sister to her, her relatives and neighbours, and pasting posters near their house, causing mental harassment and social embarrassment. Police said the accused had approached the complainant's sister through a matrimonial website, that the proposal fell through over a horoscope mismatch, and that he then sought revenge by sending the material about seven times between July 2025 and January 2026 from post offices in Ujjain, Dewas, Khategaon, Ashta and Dhar, wearing a mask and cap and changing buses to avoid being traced; NewsTak adds that he also threatened the family with an acid attack and that a laptop and printer were seized. The case was registered under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the IT Act and the SC/ST Act and he was remanded. Patrika reports that the obscene images were created with AI and that police said digital forensics found AI-generated images; the English reports describe them as morphed without naming the technology, so the AI attribution rests on one outlet.

Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 15/06/2026

Mar 2026IndiaUnidentified image and video tool

Indore: a first-year college student complained in May 2026 that a man she met at her sister's wedding edited her photographs with AI into objectionable images after she refused to marry him, blackmailed her with them and, after approaching her fiancé (the reports differ on how), caused her engagement to be broken off; she had been contemplating suicide before confiding in her family (Navbharat Times, Amar Ujala, Patrika, 12-13 May 2026)

Indore police registered an FIR at Banganga police station on a first-year college student's complaint reported on 12 and 13 May 2026. She said she had met the accused, a young man from the Indore area, at her sister's wedding in 2024, where he took some photographs of her; he later pressed her to marry him and, when she refused, threatened to edit her photographs with AI into objectionable (Navbharat Times, Amar Ujala) or obscene (Patrika) images and post them online. Navbharat Times reports that he edited the pictures with AI, blackmailed her with them and, after her family arranged her engagement elsewhere, reached her fiancé and showed him the edited pictures, after which the families quarrelled and the engagement was broken; Patrika says he went to the fiancé's home and intimidated him into breaking the match; Amar Ujala says he also threatened to kill her and her family and sent edited pictures when her family tried to reason with him, and that when her engagement took place about two months earlier he went to her house and made false allegations about her character in front of the prospective fiancé, after which the engagement broke. She went into severe mental distress and, according to Amar Ujala, had resolved to take a suicidal step before telling her family, who took her to the police. The FIR was registered under the IT Act and sections on criminal intimidation and defamation; police were searching for the accused.

Core concern High reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 15/06/2026

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.