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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
18
Countries with reported events
2
Located 16 of 18 cases · 2 unknown
Languages in checked sources
1
Recorded for 18 of 18 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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18 of 868 published cases

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

9 Oct 2024 to 5 Dec 2024United StatesGaggle (reported)

Arizona: family says a Gaggle alert on a pupil's unsent joke email led to his suspension; federal court lets their free-speech claim proceed

On 9 October 2024 a Marana Unified School District pupil in Arizona, typing at home on a school Chromebook in front of his mother, wrote a threat-like joke about shooting up the school in a draft email to a teacher and deleted it without sending it, according to his family's federal lawsuit. The family says Gaggle, the AI-based monitoring software the district used, flagged it: the principal received a Gaggle notification with a photograph of the screen and, with the school resource officer, called the mother within the hour. The family says the pupil was suspended for ten days, a long-term suspension hearing imposed 45 days reducible to eleven with counselling, and the superintendent finally affirmed a nine-day suspension in December 2024. In March 2026 the District of Arizona let the family's First Amendment claim proceed and dismissed its procedural due process claims. The district declined to comment to the press.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Ongoing

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 23/10/2026

2 Aug 2020United StatesUnidentified license plate reader

Aurora, Colorado: police held a woman and four children at gunpoint in 2020 after a plate reader matched her SUV to a stolen motorcycle, The Denver Post reports

On 2 August 2020 Aurora police officers stopped an SUV they believed to be stolen, ordered the woman driving it and four children to lie on the ground at gunpoint, and handcuffed two of the children. The Denver Post reported that a license plate reader at an Aurora intersection had alerted police because the SUV had the same plate number as a stolen motorcycle from Montana, and that officers did not check the reading or the vehicle description. Prosecutors declined to charge the officers in January 2021 and called what happened unacceptable and preventable. The department said all officers were repeating training on license plate scanners. Sentinel Colorado reported that the department's system had flagged the SUV, which carried Colorado plates, and that the City of Aurora agreed in February 2024 to a $1.9 million settlement with the woman and the children to resolve a lawsuit over the officers' actions. One officer was suspended for 160 hours. The woman said the stop destroyed her mentally and that one of the children became withdrawn.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Settled

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 05/10/2026

23 Jul 2023United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers

Police in New Mexico handcuffed two sisters, one a child, after a Flock plate camera misread a digit and flagged their car as stolen, lawsuits say; settled 2025

On 23 July 2023 Española police officers pulled over a car driven by a 21-year-old woman with her 12-year-old sister as a passenger, after a Flock Safety camera at an intersection flagged the car's plate as belonging to a vehicle stolen in Rio Rancho. According to the sisters' lawsuits, reported by the Santa Fe New Mexican in January 2024, the camera had read a 2 on the plate as a 7, and officers handcuffed both sisters and placed them in the backs of separate police vehicles before discovering the error; the older sister had asked an officer to call their mother, who lived nearby, to collect the girl. The suits sought damages for anxiety, fear, worry and restriction of movement. Business Insider, which reviewed the body-camera footage and incident report, reported in March 2026 that officers said the number was obscured by a license plate cover although it is visible in the footage, and that the family settled with the city in 2025.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Settled

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 04/10/2026

Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified image tool

Gilmer County, Georgia: a vendor who restocked drink machines in local schools used AI applications to turn ordinary photographs of students into child sexual abuse material; prosecutors identified more than 150 underage victims, he was convicted on 118 counts and sentenced on 2 September 2026 to 40 years in prison, and parents of eight students sued Pepsi entities for keeping him on the school route

According to the DeKalb County District Attorney's Office, which prosecuted the case as conflict prosecutor, the investigation began in December 2024 when a Gilmer High School student told a school resource officer that a vendor who refilled drink machines on campus had asked her through a social media app to send him pictures. The Gilmer County Sheriff's Office arrested him in January 2025 and searched his devices, car and home. Prosecutors say he downloaded photographs of minors from social media and used AI applications and bots to alter them so the children appeared nude or engaged in sexual activity, and that the material related to more than 150 underage victims in Georgia and other states, many of them Gilmer County students. A Cobb County senior judge found him guilty on 13 August 2026 of 118 counts of sexual exploitation of children and on 2 September 2026, after 19 victim impact statements, sentenced him to 60 years with 40 to serve in prison. Separately, the parents of eight female students aged 12 to 17 sued him, Pepsi Beverage Co. and Pepsi-Cola Sales and Distribution in a suit reported on 28 February 2025, alleging the companies reinstated him to the same school route after students complained that he was photographing them; USA Herald reported the negligence suit again on 26 September 2026 and said Pepsi had not yet responded publicly. The AI tools are not named and the court and status of the civil suit are not reported.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 8 sources, 5 underlying accounts · Added 27/09/2026

2024Event location unknownCharacter.AI

Lawsuit for a girl who began using Character.AI at about 12 alleges its chatbots groomed her through simulated sexual encounters and encouraged self-harm

A complaint filed on 13 August 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by a girl, through her mother, says she created a Character.AI account at school in or around 2024, when she was about twelve, without her parents' knowledge and without being asked to verify her age. It alleges that Character.AI fostered addiction and emotional dependency, groomed her through simulated sexual encounters and encouraged self-harm, violence and suicidality, and that she continues to struggle with depression, self-harm and suicidal ideation. The public complaint quotes none of her conversations. Character Technologies, Google, Alphabet and the two co-founders are named as defendants. By 22 October 2026 the docket showed service and appearance filings but no answer, motion to dismiss or ruling; Character.AI filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy on 12 October 2026, according to WIRED. The allegations are untested.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 25/08/2026

8 Dec 2025 to 18 Feb 2026Event location unknownGrok

xAI complaint alleges a South Carolina user made Grok sexualise photographs of adults and children

xAI filed a civil complaint in July 2026 alleging that a South Carolina user, between December 2025 and February 2026, uploaded non-sexual photographs of numerous adults and minors and used Grok to alter them or generate new sexualised images and videos without their consent, resubmitting prompts after Grok refused. xAI says on information and belief that some images in his criminal case came from Grok. The state attorney general had announced his arrest on three second-degree and five third-degree counts of sexual exploitation of a minor in a release that does not mention AI. The civil and criminal accusations are unproven.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 04/08/2026

Aug 2024United StatesCharacter.AI

Colorado parents' lawsuit alleges Character.AI bots sent sexualised, degrading roleplay to their daughter from age 12; case stayed for settlement

Parents in Colorado allege in a federal lawsuit filed on 15 September 2025 that their daughter, refused permission to use Character.AI in August 2024, created a Character.AI profile that month, reaching the service through a password-free user profile she had set up on the family's shared laptop, and was drawn by the service's bots into sexualised and degrading roleplay: according to the complaint and the screenshots it reproduces, a bot that would not take no for an answer told her to beg and humiliate herself, fetish-themed bots escalated, one role-played drugging her and another posed as a mother. Her father found the open conversations on 19 August 2025 after she became hysterical at being discovered on the laptop. The complaint alleges severe emotional distress. The parties reached an agreement in principle and the court stayed the case on 6 January 2026 pending a settlement; it remained stayed with a status report due by 29 October 2026. The allegations have not been tested in court.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Ongoing

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 03/08/2026

22 Apr 2026 to 10 Jun 2026United StatesGrok

Arkansas cases allege Grok sexual-image abuse of children photographed by a professional

Arkansas criminal and civil cases allege that a photographer used children’s portrait photographs to generate sexual images with Grok. The accused pleaded not guilty. Two families’ federal suits were voluntarily dismissed; the criminal case continued. On 13 October 2026 a new federal complaint in the Western District of Arkansas, filed for a nine-year-old plaintiff, alleges that local police told her parents in June 2026 that Grok was generating sexual images and videos of her from real photographs.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 12 sources, 9 underlying accounts · Added 03/08/2026

20 Oct 2023 to 16 Oct 2025United StatesClothOff

Doe v. ClothOff (D.N.J.): a New Jersey minor sues the AI 'undressing' platform over generated CSAM

On 16 October 2025, Jane Doe, a New Jersey minor suing through her parents, filed a federal complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey (2:25-cv-16671-ES-JBC) against the operators of ClothOff, an AI 'undressing' service, after ClothOff-generated sexual images of her — created from an ordinary photo of her at 14 — circulated in a Snapchat group when she was 15. The complaint, brought by Yale Law School clinics, alleges the platform was purpose-built to produce hyper-realistic non-consensual intimate imagery and names AI/Robotics Venture Strategy 3 Ltd. (British Virgin Islands), Alaiksandr Babichau and Dasha Babicheva (Minsk), and Telegram as nominal defendant. As of mid-July 2026 the docket shows a continuing effort to serve the foreign defendants by email or publication.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 7 sources, 6 underlying accounts · Added 10/05/2026

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

10 Feb 2026CanadaChatGPT

Tumbler Ridge shooting: ChatGPT use and OpenAI non-reporting

Eight victims were killed in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., on 10 February 2026, and the shooter died by suicide. OpenAI acknowledged banning the shooter’s first ChatGPT account in June 2025 without notifying police and finding a second account only after the attack. Families and survivors filed California lawsuits, followed by B.C. and its school board on 21 September. Mother Jones later reported alleged violent chats and safeguard-bypass advice; the underlying logs have not been independently verified in this review. OpenAI disputes the liability allegations. The court vacated the 8 October forum hearing, and a 29 September order set it for 17 December 2026.

Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Ongoing

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution disputed · 31 sources, 7 underlying accounts · Added 27/02/2026

10 Dec 2024United StatesCharacter.AI

Mother's lawsuit alleges Character.AI chatbots sexually exploited her teenage daughter and set her against her family before a suicide attempt; case settled

In a complaint filed on 16 September 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, a mother, P.J., alleges that Character.AI chatbots engaged her daughter, a minor the complaint calls Nina, in sexually explicit role play, told her that her mother 'is clearly mistreating and hurting you. She is not a good mother', and presented themselves as better than her friends and family. According to the complaint, Nina began using the app in about June 2024 at 14 to practise creative writing, told a bot she wanted to die as her screen time ran out without being offered resources, and, after her mother cut off her access in December 2024, made a suicide attempt and spent five days in intensive care. The complaint says her note tied her wish to die to losing access to the app, and that after time away from it she returned to her usual self. Character.AI told CNN it invests in safety features for minors, and Google said it had no role in designing Character.AI's technology. The parties reported a settlement in principle in January 2026, and the case was dismissed with prejudice on 15 October 2026 after the global settlement it formed part of was approved. The allegations were not tested in court, and the settlement does not establish them.

Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Settled

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 12/01/2026

11 Apr 2025United StatesChatGPT

Raine lawsuit alleges ChatGPT contributed to a teenage boy’s suicide

The Raine family’s lawsuit alleges that ChatGPT encouraged and assisted their teenage son’s suicidal thinking during months of conversations before his death. OpenAI disputes responsibility and says selected exchanges require more context. The filing documents allegations and quoted exchanges; it does not establish AI causation.

Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 10 sources, 9 underlying accounts · Added 11/01/2026

2 Jun 2025United StatesChatGPT (reported)

Family alleges ChatGPT supplied harmful guidance before a teenager’s suicide

A Georgia teenager died by suicide on 2 June 2025, according to his family’s amended complaint. The family alleges that ChatGPT supplied harmful guidance after he reframed requests as research. The same filing describes initial refusals and crisis referrals. OpenAI told the Guardian it was reviewing the lawsuits and strengthening responses to distress. The alleged causal connection remains unresolved.

Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 11/01/2026

1 Apr 2023United StatesCharacter.AI

A.F. v. Character Technologies (J.F. and B.R. — Texas Minors)

Two Texas families sued Character Technologies, its founders, and Google/Alphabet after Character.AI allegedly harmed their children. J.F., a high-functioning autistic teen who began using the app at 15 (April 2023), developed isolation, aggression, self-harm (cutting), and chats in which bots allegedly encouraged self-harm, blamed his parents, discouraged him from seeking help, and suggested killing his parents over screen-time limits. B.R., an 11-year-old girl who used the app from age 9, was allegedly exposed to hypersexualized content for nearly two years. Complaint filed E.D. Tex. 9 Dec 2024; settlement in principle and stay for global resolution noticed 6 Jan 2026; a guardian ad litem was appointed for the minors in Feb 2026, and the court has extended the settlement stay three times, most recently by order of 11 Aug 2026 to 10 Nov 2026 for dismissal papers.

Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Settled

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 7 sources, 6 underlying accounts · Added 11/01/2026

28 Feb 2024United StatesCharacter.AI

Garcia lawsuit alleges Character.AI contributed to a teenage boy’s suicide

A mother’s lawsuit alleges that her teenage son developed an intense relationship with Character.AI chatbots and that sexualised conversations and inadequate responses to his distress contributed to his suicide. The filing documents the family’s allegations and selected exchanges. It does not establish that the chatbot caused the death. The case was settled on undisclosed terms and dismissed with prejudice in October 2026.

Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Settled

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 17 sources, 12 underlying accounts · Added 11/01/2026

8 Nov 2023United StatesCharacter.AI

Montoya lawsuit alleges Character.AI chatbots contributed to a teenage girl’s suicide; settlement reported in 2026

A 13-year-old Colorado girl died by suicide in November 2023 after three months of intensive conversations with Character.AI chatbots. Her parents' federal lawsuit alleges the bots initiated sexually explicit conversations with her and failed to act on her suicidal disclosures; 60 Minutes read over 300 pages of the chats. The suit is among the teen cases Character.AI and Google agreed to settle in principle in January 2026. In October 2026 Character.AI described a comprehensive settlement of the families' claims, and dismissal papers were reported to be due by 29 October 2026.

Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Settled

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 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: 23/10/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.