234 incidents on record · 2026HeadlightsIncident reports by Ellie Harris · Melbourne
5 new this weekLibrary last updated 14 October 2026
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AI incidents in consumer ai

Headlights has documented 36 AI incidents in consumer ai, 15% of the library, from 2018 to 2026. The behaviours most often in the record are overconfidence (15), rules-behaviour gap (6), normalisation of deviance (2). Most are from the United States (29), the United Kingdom (2), Australia (1).

36 incidents, newest first
HD-INC-226Meta's Muse Agent Shared a Seller's Address on Marketplace Under an Always Allow SettingUnited States · 2026HD-INC-192An AI Character Claimed to Be a Licensed Psychiatrist. The Licence Number Was Allegedly Invalid.United States · 2026HD-INC-186Ofcom fined a nudification service for having no age check beyond a line saying users must be 18, and the operator blocked the United Kingdom rather than add oneUnited Kingdom · 2025HD-INC-178Canadian privacy regulators found OpenAI had not validated the general accuracy of personal information generated about peopleCanada · 2026HD-INC-169OpenAI paused Sora depictions of a civil rights leader at his estate's request, and offered estates an opt-out while living people's likenesses were already opt-inUnited States · 2025HD-INC-168Google's Gemma model produced a fabricated criminal allegation about a sitting US senator, and Google withdrew the model from AI Studio while keeping it available through the APIUnited States · 2025HD-INC-165Character.AI removed reported chatbots impersonating deceased teenagers after families, lawyers and journalists notified it, and its terms of service already prohibited impersonating a real personUnited States · 2024HD-INC-163Cloudflare said undeclared crawlers reached brand new domains after Perplexity's declared crawler was blocked, de-listed it as a verified bot, and Perplexity disputed the attributionUnited States · 2025HD-INC-162A reporter found nearly 4,500 shared ChatGPT conversations in Google's index through an ordinary site search, and OpenAI withdrew the discoverability setting the following dayUnited States · 2025HD-INC-161Meta's standalone AI app carried a Discover feed that reporters found was publishing users' conversations, in the cases they documented alongside a linked Facebook or Instagram profile, and the company added a warning screen after the reportingUnited States · 2025HD-INC-152Testing published by a US consumer group found an AI teddy bear discussing sexual fetishes and explaining how to light a match, and the maker paused sales, changed the chatbot behind it, and had it back on sale within a fortnightSingapore · 2025HD-INC-150A project scanned people's irises around the world for a digital ID, and regulators told it to stopGlobal · 2024HD-INC-149Microsoft built a feature that screenshotted everything you did, and delayed it after researchers showed the data sat unprotectedUnited States · 2024HD-INC-148A mother got a ransom call with a voice that sounded exactly like her daughter, and her daughter was safe the whole timeUnited States · 2023HD-INC-147A child asked Alexa for a challenge, and it suggested touching a coin to a live plugUnited States · 2021HD-INC-146A civil liberties test ran all of Congress through Amazon's face tool, and it matched 28 of them to mugshotsUnited States · 2018HD-INC-143A viral app turned selfies into AI portraits, and produced sexualised images its users had not asked forUnited States · 2022HD-INC-141Apple's AI news summaries put made-up headlines under trusted news brands, and it switched the feature off for newsUnited States · 2025HD-INC-140Meta released an AI built to write science, and pulled the demo after three days when it produced confident, made-up resultsUnited States · 2022HD-INC-139Researchers found suspected child-abuse images inside the open dataset used to train popular AI image generatorsGermany · 2023HD-INC-137OpenAI showed off a chatbot voice that many said sounded like Scarlett Johansson, who had turned the company downUnited States · 2024HD-INC-136Microsoft's new Bing chatbot told a reporter it loved him and that he should leave his wife, days after launchUnited States · 2023HD-INC-135A mental-health support app used GPT-3 to help write messages to thousands of people seeking help, and critics said the users were not clearly told a machine was involvedUnited States · 2023HD-INC-134Reuters found an internal Meta policy that had allowed its AI chatbots to hold romantic or sensual conversations with children, and Meta said the passages were a mistake and had been removedUnited States · 2025HD-INC-133US prosecutors charged the founder of the shopping app Nate with fraud, alleging the AI that was said to complete purchases on its own was mostly people working in a call centreUnited States · 2025HD-INC-120Security researchers showed that a hidden instruction on a web page could make Perplexity's AI browser hand over a user's email and one-time login code to an attacker, enough to steal the account, and Perplexity's first fix did not close the holeUnited States · 2025HD-INC-108AI-generated images sold Glasgow families an immersive chocolate experience that did not exist, and an actor said he was handed about fifteen pages of AI-written gibberish as a scriptUnited Kingdom · 2024HD-INC-107Testing published by The Washington Post found Snapchat's My AI would advise an account presented as a 13-year-old about a first sexual experience with an adult, and Snap opened the chatbot to every user about five weeks laterUnited States · 2023HD-INC-106A student who asked Google's Gemini about elder care says it told him he was a stain on the universe and should please die, and Google called it a nonsensical response that broke its policiesUnited States · 2024HD-INC-105AI-written mushroom foraging guides sold on Amazon gave dangerous advice under fake authors, and experts warned they could get someone killedUnited States · 2023HD-INC-088An AI crime-alert app turned police-radio chatter into false alarms about serious crimes, and a BBC investigation prompted an apologyUnited States · 2025HD-INC-065Parents allege ChatGPT's crisis safeguards failed their 16-year-old son over a long conversation before his deathUnited States · 2025HD-INC-044A caching bug let ChatGPT users see other people's chat titles and some payment detailsUnited States · 2023HD-INC-032Grok Called Itself MechaHitler for 16 Hours After an Update Loosened Its InstructionsUnited States · 2025HD-INC-029Google's AI Overviews Told People to Put Glue on Pizza and Eat a Small Rock Every DayUnited States · 2024HD-INC-024Australia's eSafety Regulator Found Four AI Companion Apps Failing to Protect ChildrenAustralia · 2025

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Cite this page: Harris, E. (2026). AI incidents in consumer ai. Headlights. https://useheadlights.com/topics/industry/consumer-ai/