Skip to main content
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 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

Explore incidents Our scope and evidence

In this selection

Published cases
2
Countries with reported events
—
Located 0 of 2 cases · 2 unknown
Languages in checked sources
1
Recorded for 2 of 2 cases
1Core concern
AI communicated, acted for, depicted or impersonated 1Contextual cases
AI made a decision or claim about someone

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.

0cases with a recorded lawsuit outcome 1cases with a recorded regulatory response 0cases 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. NOPE has searched recent events more thoroughly than earlier years, so bar heights also reflect collection effort.

2 2025
Reported severity MediumLow
More filters: AI relation, use, setting, sources and responses
Clear filters

2 of 1101 published cases

Export JSONExport CSV
Jun 2025Event location unknownLegal Genius (reported)

Johannesburg High Court refers a company's lawyers to the Legal Practice Council over fictitious citations that junior counsel said likely came from an AI tool

In an urgent application by Northbound Processing against the South African Diamond and Precious Metals Regulator, Acting Judge DJ Smit of the Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg, found while preparing judgment that two cases cited in the applicant's heads of argument did not exist. According to ITWeb, which saw the court documents, junior counsel first said a wrong version had been filed, a corrected version was found to contain two further incorrect citations, and on the court's direct inquiry junior counsel acknowledged that the citations likely originated from an AI tool called Legal Genius, used under deadline pressure. The judge accepted the legal team's apologies and found no intent to deceive, but referred the conduct of the applicant's legal practitioners to the Legal Practice Council for investigation (June 2025). The applicant obtained the relief it sought.

Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 14/10/2026

Apr 2025 to May 2025Event location unknownCoCounsel, Westlaw Precision and Gemini (reported)

Insurance claimant loses discovery relief after her lawyers file AI-generated false citations; special master's order sanctions the two firms $31,100

In an order dated 5 May 2025 and filed on 6 May in Lacey v. State Farm (C.D. Cal.), a special master struck the claimant's supplemental briefs and denied the discovery relief she sought after her lawyers filed briefs built on unverified AI-generated legal research: about nine of 27 citations were wrong and at least two cited authorities did not exist. One lawyer's sworn declaration says the outline he circulated relied on generative AI features in CoCounsel, Westlaw Precision and Google Gemini, and that he could not tell whether particular errors came from his transcription or from a tool; co-counsel at the second firm say they used no AI tools and did not know AI had been used. The order makes the two firms jointly pay $31,100, states the client was not at fault and will not bear the awards, and imposes no penalty on individual lawyers.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 29/09/2026

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.

Methodology and corrections · Subscribe via RSS · Suggest a case or correction · Find support

Last dataset update: 11/11/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.