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

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

1 2025
Reported severity Critical
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1 of 174 published cases

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27 Feb 2025 to 28 Feb 2025United StatesAI image-generation or manipulation tools (unspecified; investigators described the extortion images as AI-generated)

Kentucky: Elijah Heacock, 16, died by suicide after a sextortion demand backed by AI-generated nude images of him

Elijah Heacock, a 16-year-old Caverna High School student in Barren County, Kentucky, died by suicide on 28 February 2025. Investigators searching his phone found AI-generated images of him, some sexually explicit, that an anonymous extortionist had sent with a demand for $3,000 and a threat to share them with his family and friends; his parents say he sent a small partial payment and was told it was 'not enough'. The Barren County Sheriff's Office escalated the case to the FBI, which was still investigating in the inspected reports; no arrest has been reported. His parents have campaigned publicly, Kentucky made sextortion a felony in March 2025, and the family supported the federal Take It Down Act.

Core concern Public radio newsNews reportLocal tv news AI involvement: supported Causal attribution: supported Critical reported severity Investigation Opened Involving minors

Added 09/03/2026

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.