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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

Explore incidents Our scope and evidence

In this selection

Published cases
4
Countries with reported events
1
Located 4 of 4 cases · 0 unknown
Languages in checked sources
1
Recorded for 3 of 4 cases
1Core concern
AI communicated, acted for, depicted or impersonated 2Contextual cases
AI made a decision or claim about someone

1 case has no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 1 not yet reviewed and 0 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.

0cases with a recorded lawsuit outcome 0cases 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

1 case 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.

1 20241 20251 2026
Reported severity CriticalMediumLow
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4 of 476 published cases

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Event date unknownUnited StatesFlock Safety license plate readers

New Bedford, Massachusetts: a police officer is under internal investigation after a Flock audit raised concerns about unauthorized use and a personal connection to a searched plate; the officer's ex-girlfriend, who says she was harassed after their break-up and that police told her that her plate had been searched a concerning number of times, had an abuse prevention order extended for six months on 13 August 2026; the officer says the searches were for a drug investigation, and the department paused its Flock cameras

The New Bedford Police Department in Massachusetts placed an officer on administrative leave in August 2026 after an audit of its Flock license-plate-reader system, begun on 31 July, flagged activity that raised concerns about unauthorized use and found a personal connection between the officer and a person associated with a license plate that had been searched. The officer's former girlfriend, who ended their relationship in early April 2026, says in an affidavit reported by Boston.com that she then received endless calls and messages and that the officer showed up at her home unannounced, once while on duty in a cruiser. WJAR reports that she alleged the department had told her that her plate had been searched in its Flock database a concerning number of times, and NBC Boston reports her testimony that police told her the officer was tracking her vehicle and that this made her feel she was being followed. On 13 August New Bedford District Court extended an abuse prevention order against the officer for six months. The officer testified that the searches were for a legitimate drug investigation involving another driver of the car. The department suspended its use of Flock on 11 August while it reviews the system; its internal investigation is open and no criminal charge has been reported.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 03/10/2026

2024United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers

Stow, Massachusetts: a police detective resigned amid termination proceedings after an internal-affairs investigation found that the officer ran vehicle searches through Flock license-plate readers and state criminal-justice systems with no law-enforcement reason to get information about a Worcester County resident known to the officer; the department sought criminal charges and ended its Flock contract

The Stow Police Department in Massachusetts placed an officer, a detective and acting sergeant, on administrative leave on 18 June 2026, within three hours of a complaint from a Worcester County resident who was known to the officer. According to the department, an internal-affairs investigation found that the officer tried to obtain personal information about the resident several times in 2024 and 2025, ran vehicle information through Flock Safety's license-plate-reader system and the state Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) system on multiple dates with no legitimate law-enforcement reason, and accessed criminal offender record information at least five times. The Sentinel and Enterprise reports that the resident has been reported to be a former girlfriend. After a criminal investigation into the CJIS queries, the department filed a criminal complaint on 17 July seeking charges and referred the matter to the Middlesex District Attorney, sent its report to the state Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission, and ended its relationship with Flock Safety, removing its last camera in early August. The officer, on unpaid leave from 31 July, later resigned amid termination proceedings. No charging decision has been reported.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 03/10/2026

20 Oct 2025 to 13 Nov 2025United StatesUnidentified video tool

Hampton, New Hampshire: police say a Massachusetts man harassed a Hampton resident for more than a year and posted an AI-generated deepfake video showing the resident being arrested and jailed, events police say never happened; he was indicted on four felony counts of fraudulent use of deepfakes and is held after his bail was revoked

Hampton police say a man from Worcester, Massachusetts harassed a Hampton resident for more than a year through phone calls, texts, emails and online posts, stemming from a perceived past disagreement, and kept going after the victim asked him to stop and after he was served with a stalking order of protection in October 2025. In November 2025 the victim showed police an AI-generated deepfake video that, according to the arrest-warrant affidavit, the man created to humiliate and defame him; it shows the victim being arrested and jailed and includes a structure resembling the victim's Hampton home and images of real people. A police sergeant said the depicted events never happened and that the video was posted on YouTube. A Rockingham County grand jury indicted the man on four Class B felony counts of fraudulent use of deepfakes under RSA 638:26-a, for creating, distributing and presenting a video of an identifiable person on 20 October, 31 October, 7 November and 13 November 2025. He turned himself in on 24 March, was released on bail, was arrested again on 26 August for alleged bail violations and is held at the Rockingham County House of Corrections. Police had the video removed. The AI tool is not named and the victim's own account is relayed only through the police.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 27/09/2026

11 Aug 2026United StatesChatGPT

Acton Double Homicide (Arjun Aravind ChatGPT Family-Killing Stories)

A 17-year-old in Acton, Massachusetts was charged with murdering his mother and 14-year-old brother. Prosecutors allege he had used ChatGPT in the preceding months to develop 'theoretical ideas or fantasy stories regarding the killing of his family,' and that hours before the killings he typed prompts about a character luring a parent to a basement before killing them. His mother was found dead in the basement.

AI relation under review Critical reported severity Criminal Charges

Legacy assessment: verified · Causal attribution alleged · Added 14/08/2026

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: 03/10/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.