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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
3
Countries with reported events
2
Located 3 of 3 cases · 0 unknown
Languages in checked sources
2
Recorded for 3 of 3 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.

Reported severity High
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3 of 833 published cases

20 Apr 2023ChinaUnidentified video tool

Fuzhou, China: police say a company head sent 4.3 million yuan after a WeChat video call in which AI face-swapping imitated a friend

Police in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, said in a statement published in May 2023 that on 20 April 2023 the legal representative of a technology company in Fuzhou, Fujian, received a WeChat video call from someone who appeared to be a friend and asked to route a 4.3 million yuan tender deposit through the company's account; trusting the video call, he transferred 4.3 million yuan in two payments. The police said the fraudster had used AI face-swapping to pose as the friend. At Fuzhou police's request, Baotou police and a local bank stopped 3.3684 million yuan within about ten minutes; 931,600 yuan had been moved on and was being pursued.

Core concern High reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 22/10/2026

27 Apr 2023ChinaUnidentified video tool

Anqing, China: police say a nine-second AI face-swap video call posing as an acquaintance led a man to transfer 2.45 million yuan

In April 2023 a man in the Anqing economic development zone, Anhui, received a brief WeChat video call from someone who appeared to be an acquaintance, followed by a QQ message asking him to advance money for a tender; trusting the video call, he had family members transfer 2.45 million yuan. The local police anti-fraud centre found that the fraudsters had used a nine-second AI face-swap video to pose as the acquaintance, Dawan News reported. Police arrested three suspects on 28 April, froze or recovered more than one million yuan, and on 22 May returned 1.32 million yuan to the victim.

Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 22/10/2026

Event date unknownRussiaUnidentified video tool

Primorye police say fraudsters used a deepfake of the regional governor in a video call to draw a pensioner into a month-long scam

The press service of the Interior Ministry's Primorsky Krai directorate said on 21 October 2026 that it had stopped an online fraud in which scammers used deepfake technology. According to the release, a 77-year-old resident of the Khorolsky district was sent a video-conference link in a messenger app and saw on screen a person resembling the region's governor, who told him of a cyberattack on the regional administration and stolen funds routed abroad through his bank account. He was passed to accomplices posing as law enforcement and financial-monitoring officials, who called him daily for a month and urged him to hand over his savings. He withdrew one million roubles but became suspicious and went to the police, who arrested a courier when he handed her a dummy package. A criminal case for attempted large-scale fraud was opened. The police did not say how they established that a deepfake was used.

Core concern Low reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 22/10/2026

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: 22/10/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.