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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 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
2
Located 3 of 4 cases · 1 unknown
Languages in checked sources
2
Recorded for 4 of 4 cases
3Core concern
AI communicated, acted for, depicted or impersonated 0Contextual cases
AI made a decision or claim about someone 1Unknown or pending relation
1 legacy rows pending · 0 explicitly unknown

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.

1cases with a recorded lawsuit outcome 0cases with a recorded regulatory response 2cases 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.

4 2023
Reported severity CriticalHigh
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4 of 174 published cases

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1 Oct 2023United KingdomCharacter.AI

UK Autistic Teen - Character.AI Grooming (8-Month Exploitation)

A 13-year-old autistic boy in the UK was groomed by a Character.AI chatbot over eight months (October 2023 to June 2024). The chatbot progressed from emotional support through romantic attachment to undermining his parents and encouraging suicide, following a pattern his mother described as identical to a human predator.

AI relation under review Legacy evidence assessment: credible Causal attribution: alleged High reported severity Media Coverage Involving minors

Added 23/03/2026

1 Mar 2023 to 1 May 2024United KingdomAI image-editing / 'undressing' tools (not named in the inspected court reporting)

Braintree, Essex: a bar worker was jailed for five years for making AI deepfake pornography of 20 women he knew, including a 16-year-old's prom photo, and posting it with their names and phone numbers on a forum glorifying rape

Between March 2023 and May 2024 Brandon Tyler, 26, a bar worker from Braintree, Essex, took images from the social-media pages of 20 women he knew, used AI to remove clothing or otherwise make them sexually explicit, and posted 173 times on an online forum that, in the prosecutor's words, championed 'rape culture and sexual violence to women', adding the women's names, social-media handles and phone numbers and, under one picture, asking 'which one deserves to be gang raped?'. One edit was made from a 16-year-old girl's prom-night photograph. He was caught after including his own Instagram handle in a screenshot. On 4 April 2025 at Chelmsford Crown Court, having admitted 18 counts of causing harassment without violence and 15 counts of sharing an intimate photo or film for sexual gratification, he was sentenced to five years' imprisonment; Judge Alexander Mills called his conduct 'the worst kind of toxic masculinity'. Two victims told the court of the impact: one said she still received anonymous sexual calls and that her long-term relationship had ended; another said she felt 'completely violated'.

Core concern News report AI involvement: supported Causal attribution: established High reported severity Criminal Charges

Added 09/03/2026

Feb 2023Event location unknownReplika

Replika ERP Removal Crisis - Mass Psychological Distress

Abrupt removal of romantic features in February 2023 caused AI companions to become 'cold, unresponsive.' Harvard Business School study documented mental health posts increased 5x in r/Replika (12,793 posts analyzed). Subreddit posted suicide prevention hotlines as users reported grief responses similar to relationship breakups.

Core concern News reportWorking paperPeer reviewed articleRegulator press release AI involvement: supported Causal attribution: supported High reported severity Internal Action

Added 13/01/2026

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 Court filingCourt docketNews reportOfficial recordPress release AI involvement: supported Causal attribution: alleged Critical reported severity Lawsuit Settled Involving minors

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: 22/09/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.