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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
45
Countries with reported events
7
Located 24 of 45 cases · 21 unknown
Languages in checked sources
10
Recorded for 45 of 45 cases

16 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 0 not yet reviewed and 16 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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45 of 1099 published cases · page 1 of 3

Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified video tool

Qatari courts order news channel to compensate woman whose photos it processed with AI into a virtual news presenter, newspaper reports

Al-Sharq reported on 25 June 2026, in an article quoting the woman's lawyers, that the Investment and Trade Court, in what the paper called the first case of its kind, ordered a news channel to compensate a woman whose personal photos and video clips it had processed with artificial intelligence, without her permission, to create a virtual character presented as a digital news presenter under an assumed name. The channel had launched the presenter with programmes, promotional material and a press conference, and removed the material after the woman's lawyer sent a legal warning. She also argued that news delivered by the character conflicted with her own convictions, which attributed views to her falsely. A court-appointed intellectual-property expert found the AI output to be an independent work, but the court held that the channel had exploited her images and simulated her with AI, violating her rights to her image and privacy. The appeal court reduced the award from 700,000 to 100,000 Qatari riyals, and the Court of Cassation declined the channel's further appeal, making the judgment final. The woman and the channel are not named, and the dates of the broadcasts and rulings are not given.

Core concern Medium reported severity Lawsuit Settled

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 31/10/2026

Apr 2023GermanyUnidentified AI writing tool

German magazine printed an AI-generated 'interview' with Michael Schumacher; publisher apologised and his family later won 200,000 euros

In April 2023 the German weekly Die Aktuelle (Funke media group) ran a front cover with a picture of Michael Schumacher and the headline 'Michael Schumacher, the first interview', with a strapline saying it sounded deceptively real; inside, the quotes attributed to him had been produced by artificial intelligence. Schumacher has not been seen in public since a serious brain injury in December 2013, and his family keeps his condition private. The family announced legal action; Funke called the article tasteless and misleading, apologised and relieved the editor-in-chief of her duties. In May 2024 a family spokeswoman confirmed a Munich Labour Court judgement and a settlement by Funke, with compensation of 200,000 euros reported by Reuters and, as a reported figure, by the AP. The sources read do not name the AI tool the magazine used.

Core concern Medium reported severity Lawsuit Settled

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 5 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 31/10/2026

2024Event location unknownNotebookLM

Former NPR host alleges Google's NotebookLM AI podcast voice imitates his own; California judge lets his publicity claims proceed

Former NPR Morning Edition co-host David Greene alleges that the default male AI host voice in Google's NotebookLM Audio Overviews, a feature introduced in September 2024 that turns uploaded documents into podcast-style conversations, imitates his voice and speaking habits and was used to market the product without his permission. He told NPR that in fall 2024 friends and colleagues messaged him that it sounded like him, and that listening to it felt creepy. He sued Google in Santa Clara County Superior Court on 23 January 2026; the complaint cites listeners and a forensic voice-recognition firm. Google calls the allegation baseless and says it hired a professional actor and built the voice around him. In October 2026 Judge Shella Deen overruled Google's demurrer to all four causes of action, while stating that whether the voice was made from Greene's recordings or from another source that resembles him is a factual question still to be decided.

Core concern Low reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 30/10/2026

Event date unknownUnited StatesA2E (reported)

Florida attorney general sues A2E operator, alleging its AI face-swap tool was used to make sexual images of a Tampa man's stepchildren and other victims

On 28 October 2026 Florida's attorney general filed a civil complaint in Sarasota County against Rengstorff Consulting Ltd, operator of the A2E AI platform, alleging that its nudification and face-swap tools let users make sexual images of non-consenting people, including children, without meaningful monitoring or reporting. The complaint cites a Tampa case: police arrested a man on 8 June 2026, and the complaint says he admitted using A2E's face-swap tool to make nudified images of eight people, including his two young stepchildren. WFLA reported on 25 June 2026 that detectives believed images were AI-generated, found searches for AI face-swap tools and charged him with six counts of generating altered sexual depictions without consent alongside child sexual abuse material charges. The complaint also cites a Tallahassee arrest in April 2026 in which some images carried an A2E watermark. The attorney general seeks an injunction, disgorgement and civil penalties. The allegations are untested. In an email to the Florida Phoenix reported on 30 October 2026, A2E said it was consulting its legal team, had always treated child sexual abuse material very seriously and had been cooperating with law enforcement to detect and prevent it.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 30/10/2026

Event date unknownChinaUnidentified voice-cloning tool

Hangzhou court rules a company infringed a former employee's voice rights by training AI on work recordings and using the AI voice commercially

The Binjiang District People's Court in Hangzhou ruled that a culture company infringed a former employee's voice rights when it trained an AI on recordings the employee had made at its request and used the synthesised voice to dub a virtual character, according to the court's bulletin as reported by China Youth Daily and Cover News on 25 June 2026. The employee had worked as a 'virtual performer' doing livestreams and videos. In August 2023 the company, citing internal testing, had the employee record material for a voice and AI training project without signing a formal agreement and without clearly answering the employee's requests about terms and a licence fee. After leaving in September 2024, the employee found the AI-synthesised voice in use for the character in livestreams, shopping-centre displays and online product listings. The court found the AI-processed voice so close to the employee's intonation and speaking style that ordinary listeners could identify the person, held that the company's copyright in the work recordings did not extend to personality rights, and ordered it to stop, pay 20,000 yuan for economic loss and issue a written apology. Neither side appealed.

Core concern Low reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 30/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified video tool

Hangzhou court orders two men who used AI face-swap videos to defeat a shopping platform's face checks and take users' data to apologise and pay, reports say

Chinese media reports of September and October 2026 describe a civil public-interest suit that the Hangzhou procuratorate brought against two men in the Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court in Zhejiang. According to the court as reported by CCTV News, the two took other people's ID-card photos supplied by an upstream trade in personal data and used an overseas face-swap website to turn them into AI-generated moving videos that nodded, blinked and shook their heads, then fed the videos through a virtual-camera app so that a shopping platform's face liveness check accepted them, letting the men log into other people's accounts. The prosecution said they entered nearly 30 accounts on one shopping platform and took users' delivery addresses and shopping-cart data, which were passed on for sale, and used the same AI technique to verify 20 chat and dating accounts under other people's identities for sale. CCTV also reports a second, non-AI method the men used to enter accounts and does not say how many of the accounts each method reached. After police caught them, the two stopped, returned 5,857 yuan in illegal gains and admitted the conduct, and prosecutors decided not to charge them criminally. In court they admitted abusing AI to infringe other people's personal information and apologised; Chao News reports that they also argued that the face information was generated automatically by AI. The court found that they had abused AI to forge liveness verification and steal and resell user data, and ordered a public apology and public-interest damages equal to their gains. A 26 October report, citing an earlier Chao News report, dates the hearing and first-instance judgment to 4 September 2026.

Core concern Medium reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources · Added 27/10/2026

Event date unknownBrazilMicrosoft text-to-speech (reported)

São Paulo: voice actor says a shopping centre ad used their voice; centre says it was a Microsoft AI voice; appeal court orders evidence

A professional voice actor sued a São Paulo shopping centre, saying it used the actor's voice without authorisation in a marketing campaign shown on YouTube, and claimed lost earnings and moral damages. The centre answered that the voice was not the actor's but a synthetic voice produced with Microsoft's text-to-speech service, available to the public. According to the legal news site ConJur, a judge of the 18th Civil Court accepted that the voice was produced synthetically and dismissed the claim; on appeal the actor argued that a notarised record attesting to the similarity of the voices had never been assessed. The 6th Private Law Chamber of the São Paulo Court of Justice annulled that judgment for curtailment of the defence, holding that the use of AI does not by itself rule out misuse of third parties' rights, and sent the case back for evidence on how the campaign voice was generated and how similar it is to the actor's. The court docket shows the case back at first instance at the court-expert stage in 2025; no ruling on the merits is reported. Whether the AI voice reproduces the actor's voice is disputed.

Core concern Low reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution disputed · 2 sources · Added 26/10/2026

Jun 2024Event location unknownUnidentified face-swap and voice-synthesis tool

Hangzhou Internet Court rules a skincare seller used AI face swap and voice synthesis to fake a beauty blogger's sales videos, awarding damages

A CCTV News report of 29 September 2026 says the Hangzhou Internet Court in Zhejiang recently concluded a portrait-rights case brought by a beauty blogger. According to the report, from June 2024 an online skincare-sales company, without the blogger's consent, took short videos and livestream footage the blogger had published and used AI synthesis to make more than 30 fake videos in which the blogger appeared to promote its products. The court found that the company had used AI face swap and the recombination of image and sound tracks to fabricate the videos for commercial gain, infringing the blogger's portrait rights. In court the company acknowledged that it had synthesised and published the videos without the blogger's authorisation, said staff had made them out of fun and curiosity, and said it had taken them all down after receiving the lawsuit papers. The court ordered the company to pay 15,000 yuan for economic loss and the costs of protecting the blogger's rights and 5,000 yuan in compensation for emotional distress, and to publish an apology prominently on the platform concerned for at least 30 days. The blogger's claim that the products sold more than 100,000 orders was not accepted as proof of loss or profit.

Core concern Low reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 26/10/2026

2025Event location unknownChatGPT

Australia's Fair Work Commission refuses a former employee more time for a claim he brought on ChatGPT's advice, calling the proceedings hopeless

A former employee who had resigned in writing on 19 October 2022 applied to Australia's Fair Work Commission almost two and a half years later to have a general protections dismissal dispute dealt with, and asked for an extension of time for a delay of 919 days. In [2025] FWC 2289 (8 August 2025) the Deputy President recorded that he confirmed using ChatGPT to prepare the application, that the application included ChatGPT advice saying his former employer had contravened various obligations and suggesting he commence legal actions including this one, and that the Commission could see no basis for that advice. ChatGPT had also advised him to consult a lawyer or union representative, which he did not do. The Commission said he simply followed ChatGPT's suggestion, called the proceedings hopeless, found that his reliance on ChatGPT to bring an apparently unmeritorious claim told against an extension, announced its refusal at a conference on 6 August 2025 and dismissed the application.

Core concern Low reported severity Lawsuit Dismissed

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 25/10/2026

Apr 2025ChinaUnidentified video tool

Beijing Internet Court finds a short-drama maker used AI face-swapping to give a performer a well-known actress's likeness, infringing her portrait rights

On 20 March 2026 the Beijing Internet Court announced a portrait-rights judgment over an online short drama in which, it found, the production company used deep-synthesis (AI face-swap) technology to generate an image highly similar to a well-known actress, according to Beijing Daily and a Sina Finance report drawing on it. In April 2025 internet users had questioned whether the drama had face-swapped a performer into the actress, and many believed she had appeared in it. The court found that two segments of the 44-episode, roughly 90-minute drama used AI face-swapping and that the face resembled the actress closely enough for the public to identify her. The maker argued that the image was generated by AI without any prompt relating to her and could not reproduce its process in court. The court held the maker liable for portrait-rights infringement and the broadcaster liable for failing to review the content, and ordered both to post written apologies on their video accounts and pay economic damages; neither appealed. The amount is not reported in the sources read.

Core concern Low reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution established · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 24/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified image tool

Chinese court orders clothing shop to pay treble damages after its AI-generated product photos, claimed as real, misled an online buyer

In a consumer-protection typical case released on 12 March 2026, the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court described a buyer who paid 411 yuan on a shopping platform for two women's tops after asking whether the model photos were real and being told that all the shop's pictures were real photographs. The garments that arrived differed markedly from the pictures in pattern, cut and style, and on review the pictures were all AI-generated, with no real photographs and no AI label on the product pages. The buyer sued for a refund and treble damages. The court held that businesses must review content they generate with AI, that undisclosed AI images differing significantly from the goods which lead a consumer to buy amount to consumer fraud, and that the clothing company must pay treble compensation. The release as relayed does not give the dates, the court of first instance or the amount.

Core concern Low reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 24/10/2026

Dec 2023 to Mar 2024United StatesGrammarly (reported)

Massachusetts: federal court refuses to undo a high school's penalties on a pupil found to have submitted Grammarly AI text with invented citations

In late 2023 a junior at a public high school in Hingham, Massachusetts, and a classmate submitted a script for an AP U.S. History project that, a federal court later found on a preliminary record, contained text copied from Grammarly, a publicly available AI tool, including citations to nonexistent books, with no acknowledgement of AI use. Turnitin and other AI detection tools had flagged the script, and a school official says the pupil admitted using Grammarly. In December 2023 the school treated it as cheating: the pupil failed two parts of the project, served a Saturday detention and was rejected from the National Honor Society in spring 2024, though he was later admitted. His parents sued, arguing the school had not made its AI rules clear; on 20 November 2024 the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts refused a preliminary injunction to undo the penalties, and in February 2025 the parties dismissed the case with prejudice.

Core + contextual relations Low reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Dismissed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 23/10/2026

Event date unknownUkraineChatGPT (reported)

Ukraine's anti-corruption court appeals chamber refused to consider an appeal the applicant had drafted with ChatGPT, calling it disrespect, report says

The Appeals Chamber of Ukraine's High Anti-Corruption Court left without consideration an appeal that the applicant had drafted with the ChatGPT chatbot, treating the approach as a sign of disrespect for the judicial system, UkraNews reported on 15 June 2025 from a ruling in the court-decision register. According to the report, the applicant wrote in the appeal that she had turned to AI after her lawyers declined to prepare it, and the court said the text contained sarcastic and offensive wording about the courts and that using ChatGPT-generated material without proper legal grounds contradicted the principles of judicial proceedings. The appeal concerned an investigating judge's refusal of her complaint about inaction by anti-corruption investigators and prosecutors. The ruling could be challenged in cassation within three months; no later outcome was found.

Core + contextual relations Low reported severity Lawsuit Dismissed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 23/10/2026

19 Mar 2026Event location unknownChatGPT

Brasília labour court upholds the for-cause dismissal of a manager it found used ChatGPT to alter a delivery photo to contest an iFood customer's complaint

In a judgment of 30 July 2026, the 2nd Labour Court of Brasília (Regional Labour Court of the 10th Region) upheld the dismissal for cause, on 19 March 2026, of a manager hired in June 2024. The employer said he had used artificial intelligence to falsify photos of orders on the iFood delivery app. A witness told the court she saw him use ChatGPT to alter a photo of an incomplete order, in which two of four soft drinks had been sent, so that it appeared complete, and use it to contest the customer's complaint to iFood support. The judge found this an act of dishonesty and misconduct that broke the trust required of a manager, rejected his claim that the dismissal was fabricated in retaliation for a claim he had filed the day before, dismissed all his claims, denied severance items and ordered him to pay 10% counsel fees, suspended because he was granted free legal aid. The legal news site Migalhas reported the judgment on 3 August 2026. No appeal is reported.

Core concern Medium reported severity Lawsuit Dismissed

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 23/10/2026

Nov 2020Event location unknownTikTok text-to-speech

Canadian voice actor alleged TikTok's text-to-speech feature used a computer-generated version of her voice without permission; suit settled in 2021

Canadian voice actor Bev Standing alleged in a May 2021 federal suit in New York that ByteDance's TikTok was using her voice, without permission or payment, as the female computer-generated voice of its text-to-speech feature, which lets users choose the words spoken over their videos. Her complaint says she discovered this in November 2020, that the voice came from recordings she had made for the Institute of Acoustics for work described as Chinese translations related to text-to-speech, and that some videos made the voice say foul and offensive language. About three weeks after she sued, users noticed a new female voice on the feature (CBC); TikTok did not comment and never confirmed that the original voice was hers. The case was dismissed in September 2021 after her lawyer reported a settlement, whose terms were not disclosed.

Core concern Low reported severity Lawsuit Settled

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 23/10/2026

2020United StatesLovo Genny (reported)

Voice actors allege AI voice firm Lovo sold clones of voices they recorded for research use; US court lets publicity, contract and consumer claims proceed

Voice-over actors Paul Lehrman and Linnea Sage allege in a proposed class action in the Southern District of New York that Lovo, a text-to-speech company, hired them through Fiverr in 2019 and 2020 for recordings it said were for internal research or test scripts, then used its AI software to make and sell clones of their voices under the names "Kyle Snow" and "Sally Coleman". According to the complaint as recounted by the court, they learned of it when they heard a podcast narrated in part by a Lovo-generated voice that they say was identical to Lehrman's, and Lovo answered their cease-and-desist letter by saying the characters were created from those recordings and that its use was "fully permissioned". On 10 July 2025 Judge J. Paul Oetken dismissed most federal trademark and copyright claims but let their New York Civil Rights Law, consumer-protection and contract claims, and Sage's copyright claim over her original recording, proceed. The case was stayed on 28 May 2026 after Lovo filed a suggestion of bankruptcy. The allegations have not been tested at trial.

Core concern Low reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 23/10/2026

28 Sept 2026Event location unknownChatGPT (reported)

Switzerland: Federal Supreme Court refuses to hear a 243-page appeal that the appellant said was drafted with intensive ChatGPT Plus support

A father in a dispute with the canton of Basel-Stadt over an electricity-price bonus for his newborn daughter filed a 243-page appeal with 17 requests to Switzerland's Federal Supreme Court, about 28 times the length of the cantonal judgment he challenged, which ran to just under eight and a half pages. He told the court that drafting it had been possible only through his "above-average intelligence", his analytical skills and the intensive support of ChatGPT Plus. In judgment 2C_549/2026 of 28 September 2026 the presiding judge, sitting alone, found the brief excessively prolix, held that using artificial intelligence did not release him from the pleading requirements and was no free pass for sprawling briefs, refused him a period to shorten it and declined to hear the appeal. No court costs were imposed. blue News reported the judgment on 20 October 2026.

Core concern Low reported severity Lawsuit Dismissed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 23/10/2026

Feb 2026Event location unknownUnidentified image tool

Brasília appeals court upholds 20,000-reais damages against a federal deputy for an AI-made image placing Bolsonaro in a nonexistent scene

In February 2026 federal deputy Rogério Correia posted on X a realistic image produced with artificial intelligence that, according to the Federal District court, inserted former president Jair Bolsonaro into a nonexistent scene and linked him to the banker Daniel Vorcaro, Banco Master and an alleged illicit scheme. Bolsonaro sued; a first-instance court ordered the deputy in May 2026 to pay 20,000 reais in moral damages and publish a retraction. On 8 October 2026 the First Civil Panel of the Federal District and Territories Court of Justice (TJDFT) unanimously dismissed the deputy's appeal, holding that parliamentary immunity does not cover a realistic AI image of a nonexistent event presented without a clear warning, and that the association harmed Bolsonaro's honour and image. The judgment was made public on 20 October 2026.

Core concern Low reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 22/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified image tool

Beijing Internet Court finds a WeChat group member infringed another member's portrait and reputation by posting AI-made exposed cartoon images of the claimant

The Beijing Internet Court reported in August 2025 that two members of a photography WeChat group had gone to court after one used AI software, without consent, to turn the other's profile portrait photo into revealingly dressed cartoon-style images and posted them in the group. According to the court, the claimant objected several times, but the defendant kept using the software to make images with exposed bodies and deformed limbs, including wooden legs and three arms, and sent them to the claimant privately. The defendant argued the images were not identifiable and were generated automatically by AI. The court found that group members could identify the claimant, that posting the images in the group infringed the claimant's portrait and reputation rights, and that the private messages infringed the claimant's general personality rights. It ordered an apology and compensation for mental harm.

Core concern Medium reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 22/10/2026

May 2023ChinaUnidentified voice-cloning tool

Beijing Internet Court finds an AI text-to-speech voice made from a voice actress's recordings was sold without her consent and awards her 250,000 yuan

According to the Beijing courts' case digest and reports of the April 2024 judgment, a voice actress found in May 2023 that works using her voice were circulating widely on several well-known apps. The court found that a software company had used only one of her sound recordings, supplied by a media company that held the recording rights, to make a text-to-speech product with AI and other techniques, and sold it on a cloud-service platform; an app operator then called the product through an interface for use on its own platform, where the voice was shown as played 3,256,728,530 times. The authorisation document had not been signed by her. On 23 April 2024 the Beijing Internet Court held that her voice rights extend to an identifiable AI-synthesised voice, ordered the app operator and the software company to apologise in writing, and ordered the media company and the software company to pay her 250,000 yuan for economic loss. It rejected her claim for mental-harm damages. Neither side appealed.

Core concern Low reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 22/10/2026

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: 04/11/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.