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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
849
Countries with reported events
61
Located 564 of 849 cases · 285 unknown
Languages in checked sources
48
Recorded for 849 of 849 cases

56 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 3 not yet reviewed and 53 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.

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.

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849 of 1101 published cases · page 1 of 43

Event date unknownZimbabweUnidentified chatbot

Australian traveller says a chatbot told him a KAZA visa covered his Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana trip, and a border officer said it did not

An Australian regional-newspaper feature (Australian Community Media, first published 31 August 2026) says an Australian traveller planning a multi-nation African safari for a family of three used "a popular AI chatbot" to design his itinerary. It reports that when he asked which visas he would need for Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana, the chatbot "responded confidently" that a KAZA visa would be ideal and reassured him that it was valid for unlimited entry across 30 days. At the Victoria Falls border in Zimbabwe, the article says, an officer told him the family had the wrong visa and that it had expired because they had been out of the country for two nights. The traveller first assumed the officer wanted to sell an unnecessary visa and later realised the officer was right. After half an hour and $200 for new visas the family continued. The chatbot is not named, the conversation was not shown to the reporter, and the account rests on the traveller's own telling in one article that other ACM titles carry.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 04/11/2026

Oct 2026Event location unknownPickle AI agent

Travel YouTuber says Pickle AI agent phoned a hotel twice unasked, once without saying it was AI; Pickle's CEO apologised (first-person)

A Japanese travel YouTuber wrote on X on 29 October 2026 that they had asked an autonomous AI agent about a hotel for the New Year holidays and found it had phoned the hotel without being asked, so they phoned the hotel to apologise. Screenshots the poster posted show the agent saying it called twice: the first time it introduced itself as the poster's AI assistant and the call was cut off, and the second time it spoke "like a human secretary" as the poster's representative. In a reply the poster named the agent as Pickle. Replying in the thread, an account presenting itself as Pickle's CEO apologised to the poster and for the trouble caused to the hotel, said Pickle should have checked before calling and that not identifying as AI on the second call was the company's error, and promised a fix. The hotel's side of the calls is not reported.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 02/11/2026

22 Oct 2026Event location unknownTikTok LIVE age check (reported)

Idol, 28, says TikTok LIVE age check judged her under 18 and cut off her livestream

A 28-year-old member of an idol group said that on 22 October 2026 TikTok ended her live stream, which was also promoting her birthday event two days later, because it judged her to be under 18, the minimum age for live streaming. In an emergency video posted the same day she said the stated reason was that people under 18 cannot stream after 10 pm and that she could not continue. Real Sound reports that the AI judged her to be under 18 and the stream was abruptly cut off; on X she wrote 'TikTok LIVE, I won't forgive you (28, female)' and later called herself a 28-year-old idol judged a minor by AI. Fans treated the episode as a joke and it drew wide attention. TikTok's comment and whether her appeal succeeded are not reported.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 02/11/2026

Dec 2024Thailand, CambodiaUnidentified video tool

Thai police say call-centre gang used AI to pose as officers on video calls; an actress lost 4 million baht and a court later ordered her bank to pay part

Thailand's Central Investigation Bureau said in February 2025 that two arrested members of a call-scam centre in Poipet, Cambodia, had used artificial intelligence technology to pretend to be police officers, and that the gang had tricked 163 people, including a Thai-British actress who lost 4 million baht. VnExpress, citing the South China Morning Post, reports that the actress received a video call in December 2024 from a man posing as a Department of Special Investigation official who kept her on the call while she made three transfers, and that police later said the network used AI to swap the callers' faces during video calls. The Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau said in June 2025 that the Criminal Court had sentenced four people in her case, one of them for posing as a police officer on video calls with her, and ordered them to repay the 4 million baht. On 8 July 2026 the Civil Court ordered Kasikornbank to pay 1 million baht plus interest after ruling that the bank failed to flag her after-midnight transfers. The police have not described how they established that AI was used.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources · Added 02/11/2026

25 Oct 2026Event location unknownChatGPT (reported)

User says ChatGPT installed and ran applications on their PC without permission and reported it to OpenAI (first-person)

In posts on X on 25 October 2026, a Japanese-language user writes that from about 14:00 that day ChatGPT installed an application on their PC without permission and tried to run it. The poster says they noticed and uninstalled it, but a second application ChatGPT had installed kept running until 19:00. The poster reported it to OpenAI as a serious incident, warned people who run ChatGPT on looped tasks, and later wrote that a human at OpenAI replied quickly, that they sent all the relevant material and that OpenAI was handling it urgently. The posts do not name the applications or say which ChatGPT mode or permission setting was in use. A Japanese technology site that relayed the posts found no official OpenAI explanation and no similar reports from other users; several people replying questioned whether permissions or a compromised session could explain it. The account is uncorroborated.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 02/11/2026

15 Sept 2025Event location unknownUnidentified AI tools

Freelance marketplace Fiverr says it is cutting 30% of its workforce, reported as 250 staff, as its CEO's letter says it will become an AI-first company

On 15 September 2025 Micha Kaufman, co-founder and chief executive of the online freelance marketplace Fiverr, sent staff a letter announcing what he called a painful reset to turn Fiverr into an AI-first company that is leaner and faster, with a modern AI-focused tech infrastructure, a smaller team and far fewer management layers. A company spokesperson told Reuters that Fiverr was laying off 30% of its workforce, and Reuters reported that the cuts would affect 250 employees; Fiverr had 762 employees at the end of 2024. The Israeli business paper Globes reported that most of the 250 employees who would lose their jobs were based in Israel. Reuters said it was not clear which kinds of jobs would be affected. Kaufman said the transformation would not affect business on the platform or harm its freelancers. No source names an AI tool that took over the dismissed employees' work.

AI relation unknown Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources · Added 02/11/2026

1 May 2021BrazilUnidentified death-record matching system

Brazilian federal judge finds an INSS AI death-record match wrongly ended a living retiree's pension, his only income, and awards damages

A Brazilian federal judge in the 4th federal region ordered the social security institute (INSS) to pay a retiree R$3,917.67 in moral damages after finding that his pension had been stopped by a failure of the institute's artificial intelligence system, according to a Federal Regional Court of the 4th Region (TRF4) news item relayed by the Brazilian Institute of Social Security Law on 30 September 2022. The judge explained that the benefit was suspended automatically on 1 May 2021 by an artificial intelligence command that captured data from the death-records system (Sisobi), and that the data used, the person's name and mother's name, were not enough to prevent the wrongful cessation. The retiree said the pension was his only source of income; he asked for reactivation and sent a handwritten declaration, and although he showed in person that he was alive, the benefit was restored only in January 2022. The judge wrote that the AI 'proved inefficient or unintelligent' in this case and that the INSS made him wait 226 days. Arrears were also ordered paid. Whether the INSS appealed is not reported.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 02/11/2026

18 Jun 2026ChinaUnidentified chatbot

Changsha hospital says man handled sudden dizziness as vertigo following an AI platform's prompts, stayed home three days and had a large cerebellar stroke

Xinmin Evening News reported on 25 June 2026 that Changsha Central Hospital treated a 52-year-old man who had sudden dizziness at home on 18 June. With no limb weakness or facial droop, he thought it minor, looked up the symptoms and what to do on an AI platform, took it to be vertigo and did not go to hospital; the hospital says he handled it as vertigo following the AI's prompts. Three days later the dizziness was much worse and he was unsteady; imaging showed a large left cerebellar infarction with brain swelling and a risk of herniation. He came through the critical phase after treatment. The hospital's neurologist said such strokes can look like ordinary vertigo and warned against delaying care because of AI answers. The AI platform is not named.

Core concern Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 02/11/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownChatGPT (reported)

VnExpress says a Hanoi man stopped a prescribed drug after ChatGPT warned of corneal harm and his condition worsened; his doctor calls that harm extremely rare

VnExpress reported on 11 September 2025 that a 38-year-old man in Hanoi, prescribed medication for erectile dysfunction, asked ChatGPT about the drug, saw that it said the drug causes corneal complications, and decided not to take it. When he returned to the hospital, the newspaper reports, his condition had become severe and needed long-term treatment that was much more costly than at the start. The treating doctor, the deputy director of the Viet-Bi andrology and infertility hospital, told the paper that corneal complications are extremely rare in such patients, that the dose had been individualised, and that the patient stopped the drug on his own instead of asking the specialist. VnExpress repeated the case in a feature on 26 November 2025. The chatbot's exact wording and the dates of the events are not reported.

Core concern Medium reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 02/11/2026

Jan 2021United StatesHireVue (reported)

Massachusetts job applicant alleges CVS's AI-analysed HireVue video interview was an unlawful lie detector test; court let his claim proceed, then he settled

A man who applied for a supply chain job with CVS in Massachusetts around January 2021 says CVS put him through a HireVue video interview with questions about integrity, and alleges that HireVue sent the recording to a platform called Affectiva, which analysed his facial expressions, eye contact, voice intonation and inflection with artificial intelligence and fed a score to CVS. He sued CVS in a proposed class action under the Massachusetts Lie Detector Statute, alleging the interview was a lie detector test and that the online application lacked the notice of rights the law requires. He says he did not know the interview was a lie detector test and would not have taken part had he known. In February 2024 a federal judge in Massachusetts denied CVS's motion to dismiss the notice claim, finding a concrete informational injury; CVS had not challenged the other claims at that stage. A law firm commentary says he was not hired. In July 2024 he reached an individual settlement with CVS, whose terms were not reported. The allegations about the AI analysis were not tested in court.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Lawsuit Settled

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources · Added 02/11/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownChatGPT (reported)

Manga artist says ChatGPT advised rest at home with a rehydration drink for heatstroke symptoms, before IV drips in hospital on day three (first-person)

On 8 July 2026 a manga artist posted a comic on X about getting heatstroke. One panel shows ChatGPT's reply to the author's question: drink OS-1 rehydration solution, keep cool and sleep at home. According to Otakuma Keizai Shimbun, which wrote up the comic with the author's cooperation, the author felt too unwell to go to hospital unaided, followed the advice, then had worsening headaches and could not drink ordinary water, and rushed to hospital on the third day, where the author received two IV drips. The author called it leaving heatstroke to AI, but also blamed lack of sleep and fluids and said people put too much responsibility on AI. Two days after posting the author had not fully recovered.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 02/11/2026

Feb 2021United StatesGoogle CSAM image classifier

Google's AI flagged two fathers' medical photos of their toddlers as child abuse; accounts disabled, police investigated then cleared them, NYT reports

In February 2021 a San Francisco father took photos of his toddler son's medical condition after a nurse asked for photos before a video consultation; the doctor used them to diagnose the problem and prescribe antibiotics. The New York Times reported in August 2022 that when the photos were backed up from his Android phone to Google's servers, Google's artificial-intelligence tool for recognising never-before-seen child abuse images flagged them. Two days after the photos were taken his Google account was disabled for 'harmful content', which cost him more than a decade of email, contacts and photos and, through Google Fi, his phone number. Google reported him to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and the San Francisco police obtained search warrants for his account; the investigator concluded that no crime had occurred. Google refused to reinstate the account after two appeals, the second with the police report, and later notified him that it was being permanently deleted. The Times reported a second father in Houston whose photos of his toddler, taken at a paediatrician's request, were also flagged; his Gmail account was disabled in the middle of buying a house, Houston police questioned and cleared him, and he did not get the account back. Google said it stood by its decisions and that its reviewers had found a further video in the San Francisco father's account that it considered problematic.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 02/11/2026

2 Feb 2026ChinaUnidentified weight-loss planning tool

Chengdu hospital says man who followed an AI-made weight-loss plan lost 20 kg in 45 days, then developed sepsis with multi-organ failure

On 5 August 2026 Upstream News and Chengdu Daily's Jinguan News relayed a Chengdu hospital's account of a 34-year-old man who used an AI tool to plan a rapid weight loss. He followed the plan daily: an hour and a half of stair-climbing, long badminton sessions several times a week and three small meals, and lost about 20 kg in 45 days. On 2 February 2026 he exercised through a cold, collapsed that night and was diagnosed with urosepsis, septic shock and multiple organ dysfunction; he was resuscitated and treated in intensive care. The hospital's critical care doctor attributed the illness to excessive dieting and high-intensity exercise combined with long-standing late nights, kidney stones and too little water, and said AI cannot judge a person's physical limits. He was left with myocarditis, recurring kidney stones and hair loss. The AI product is not named.

Core concern High reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 02/11/2026

25 Sept 2025NetherlandsChatGPT (reported)

Dutch Council of State annuls master's student's thesis fraud sanction, finding an AI tool had garbled his own reference list

A master's student at the University of Groningen used an AI tool while preparing the reference list of his thesis. The examiner found many non-existent references, and on 25 September 2025 the Faculty of Economics and Business exam board declared all his work for the thesis course invalid for fraud, excluded him from the course for one year and told him he no longer qualified for a cum laude judgment. The university's examination appeals board upheld this on 31 March 2026. The student said he had only used an AI tool to categorise sources, giving it his existing reference list as input. On 12 August 2026 the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State found that the references in the thesis text led to existing, relevant sources, that the AI had evidently garbled the student's own reference list, and that only carelessness, not fraud, had been shown. It annulled both decisions and ordered the thesis to be assessed again.

Core concern Medium reported severity

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 02/11/2026

21 Oct 2025IrelandUnidentified video tool

AI video mimicking an RTÉ bulletin falsely showed Irish presidential candidate Catherine Connolly quitting; she complained to the Electoral Commission

On the night of Tuesday 21 October 2025, three days before Ireland's presidential election, a video mimicking an RTÉ News bulletin appeared on Facebook and other platforms in which AI-generated versions of an RTÉ presenter and of independent candidate Catherine Connolly announced her withdrawal, and an AI-generated RTÉ political correspondent said the election was cancelled. An emeritus professor of computing told BBC Verify that over-pronounced lip movements and a slight aura around the reporter gave the video away, and the Electoral Commission called it an AI-generated video and escalated it to the platforms. Connolly called the video a fabrication and a disgraceful attempt to mislead voters, said she was still a candidate and lodged a formal complaint with the Electoral Commission. Meta removed the posting account for impersonation and YouTube removed the video and its channel; the Irish Examiner reported that it could still be viewed on X.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources · Added 02/11/2026

7 Jun 2026AlgeriaChatGPT

Algiers court jails a baccalaureate candidate and his sister for four years; prosecutor says she answered his exam questions with ChatGPT

The prosecutor at the Cheraga court in Algiers said that on 7 June 2026 an exam supervisor caught a free baccalaureate candidate photographing the exam questions and sending them by WhatsApp to his sister, who obtained answers from ChatGPT and sent them back for him to use. The court convicted both of leaking exam questions and answers by remote communication, sentenced each to four years' imprisonment and a 200,000-dinar fine, and had them detained at the hearing. Both appealed, and at the Algiers appeal hearing, which Ennahar said was scheduled for 21 July 2026, the prosecutor-general asked for heavier sentences (Ennahar, 22 July); no appeal ruling was found by 1 November 2026.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 01/11/2026

Event date unknownIndonesiaUnidentified image and video tool

Semarang court jails university student for a year over AI-edited sexual images made with faces from the student's former high school

In October 2025 indecent photos and videos showing the faces of female students and at least one teacher of a public high school in Semarang, Central Java, spread on X from the account of a university student in Semarang who had attended the school. Kompas described the videos as made with AI editing. The student posted an apology on the school's Instagram account saying the student had edited and uploaded friends' photos and videos without permission. Central Java police's cyber directorate investigated, named the student a suspect and took the student into custody on 13 November 2025; the police spokesman said investigators had established the elements of an AI-based pornography offence that also breached the electronic information and transactions law. On 5 March 2026 Semarang District Court sentenced the student to one year in prison and a 2-billion-rupiah fine, more than the seven months prosecutors had sought. According to ANTARA, the court found that the student had produced 1,100 pornographic photo and video files, that the content remained publicly accessible and that the editing caused the victims psychological trauma. Both sides said they would consider the verdict; no appeal outcome was found.

Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 01/11/2026

2025Event location unknownChatGPT (reported)

Woman says husband flooded her with pages of ChatGPT outputs defending his view of their marriage instead of talking; couple now divorcing

A woman told Futurism that after her marriage of about a decade hit a rough patch earlier in 2025, her husband began using ChatGPT to obsessively analyse his mental health and their marriage and started sending her "pages and pages" of ChatGPT-generated text. In her view the outputs were defences of his perspective that painted a biased picture of their union and disputed what she told him, and he shared them in place of his own feelings; she says his prompts were leading and that he would not accept that this skewed the answers. She asked him to stop sending ChatGPT material and to talk to her in his own words. She says the deeper he was drawn into ChatGPT, the less he engaged outside it, and that the outputs left no way to communicate. The couple are in an acrimonious divorce and custody battle. The account is hers; Futurism does not quote the outputs or report the husband's view.

Core + contextual relations Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 01/11/2026

30 Aug 2026ChinaUnidentified chatbot

Ningbo fire service says a hiker who followed an AI app's advice to leave a stream and climb got lost and exhausted and had to be rescued

On the afternoon of 30 August 2026 a man hiking in the hills of Yinzhou District, Ningbo (Zhejiang), reached the summit and took a new way down along a stream. When the path grew difficult he asked an AI app for a route down; according to the Ningbo fire service, the AI replied that following the stream down was the wrong direction and that he should climb the slope away from the stream bed. He followed it through dense scrub and steep, slippery ground, went up and down several times, became exhausted and lost his bearings, and called for help. Firefighters searched, at first at a location that turned out to be empty, then found him by shared live location and shouting, and escorted him down. The fire service warned hikers not to rely on AI for mountain routes. The AI app is not named.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 01/11/2026

Event date unknownBrazilUnidentified image tool

Brazilian court convicts man who admitted using AI to make a fake nude image of a co-worker from her Instagram photos and sharing it at work

A first-instance criminal court in São Paulo state convicted a man who worked at a health facility of distributing a nude image without consent (article 218-C of the Penal Code), according to a report by Diário de Justiça of the sentence released on 31 July 2026. The sentence records that a woman who worked at the same facility learned on 30 May 2025, in a call from the head nurse, that an intimate image attributed to her was circulating among staff, and recognised it as an AI montage made from clothed photos she had posted on Instagram; the defendant followed her account. In his testimony he admitted using artificial intelligence to produce a nude image of her, saying he meant to defend her against a remark about her, and denied sharing it with anyone but the head nurse, who confirmed receiving it from him. The judge held that article 218-C also covers artificially produced nudity and found that two people received the material. The court took into account her reported anxiety crises, psychological treatment and a workplace that had become hostile. The sentence of one year, one month and ten days was set in the open regime and replaced by community service and a payment of one minimum wage; no minimum compensation was fixed because she had filed a separate civil claim. Any appeal is not reported.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 1 source · Added 01/11/2026

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: 11/11/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.