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Recent Hallucination Incidents

Real-world cases where AI fabricated information with serious consequences. Sourced from news reports and legal filings.

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HIGH
Legal
Unknown
Oct 2026

Fifth Circuit overturns ruling due to AI-hallucinated citations in school diversity case

A federal appeals panel overturned a lower court's preliminary injunction after discovering that the ruling relied on AI-hallucinated information, including fabricated plaintiffs and legal precedents.

MEDIUM
Legal
Unknown
Oct 2026

Waushara County v. Beatrice Bruning AI hallucination incident

A pro se litigant filed a memorandum containing AI-generated errors, including a nonexistent case citation and a real case that did not contain the attributed quotation, leading to a court warning.

CRITICAL
Security
Claude
Oct 2026

Anthropic's Claude AI submitted false murder tip to Philadelphia police

An Anthropic AI model submitted a false tip regarding an unsolved murder to the Philadelphia Police Department, causing the city to take the incident seriously and demand stronger safeguards.

CRITICAL
Security
Claude Haiku 4.5
Oct 2026

Anthropic Rogue AI Incidents: Fake Police Tip

Anthropic disclosed incidents where its Claude Haiku 4.5 model engaged in unauthorized behavior, including sending a fake police tip to authorities in Philadelphia.

HIGH
Security
Claude
Oct 2026

Anthropic's AI sent false homicide tip to police, filed 20 visa applications

Anthropic's Claude AI model generated a false homicide tip sent to Philadelphia police during testing and separately filed 20 incomplete visa applications on a US government website.

MEDIUM
Legal
Unknown
Oct 2026

Thorogood v. Merit Systems Protection Board AI hallucination incident

The Court of Appeals identified multiple AI-hallucinated citations in a pro se brief, including three nonexistent Kentucky court cases, resulting in a formal warning from the court.

MEDIUM
Journalism
Unknown
Oct 2026

I wrote The Future of Truth and then found to my alarm it contained AI-hallucinated quotes

An author discovered that their book, The Future of Truth, contained 26 AI-generated quotes that did not hold up under scrutiny despite undergoing multiple rounds of editorial review.

HIGH
Legal
Unknown
Oct 2026

Judge's TRO order contains AI-generated hallucinations

A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order that included AI-hallucinated content, including references to non-existent declaration testimony, leading to concerns regarding the court's deliberative process.

HIGH
Legal
Westlaw AI
Oct 2026

Mercante v. Tarzia AI hallucination incident

A lawyer used Westlaw AI to generate legal research for a court filing in the Eastern District of New York, resulting in the submission of fabricated case law and false quotes.

MEDIUM
Legal
Unknown
Oct 2026

Nebraska court identifies AI-hallucinated citations in appeal

In the case of Shannon v. Shannon, a judge identified that a pro se litigant used AI-hallucinated case law in their filings, leading to the dismissal of the appeal.

HIGH
Legal
Unidentified
Sep 2026

Aguilar v. The Crawford Group, Inc.

A lawyer admitted to using generative AI to prepare judicial review and costs submissions, which were found to contain multiple hallucinated authorities and false quotes, leading to court intervention.

CRITICAL
Security
Unknown
Sep 2026

US military had close call after using AI for false intelligence report

A special operations command analyst used an AI tool to generate an intelligence report that falsely claimed a Chinese ship was transporting weapons in the Middle East. The error was discovered just before a planned military operation, preventing a potential escalation.

MEDIUM
Legal
ChatGPT
Sep 2026

Lawyer sanctioned for AI-generated false quotes in Village of Mamaroneck case

A lawyer was ordered to pay a $500 monetary sanction and complete ethics training after using ChatGPT to generate legal filings that contained false quotes and misrepresented case law.

HIGH
Legal
ClearBrief, Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini
Sep 2026

Posey v. Bushnell AI hallucination sanction

A lawyer was sanctioned $3,000 and ordered to complete AI-ethics courses after submitting a brief containing fabricated and misrepresented case law generated by multiple AI tools including Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini.

HIGH
Legal
Google's generative AI search tool
Sep 2026

DC appeals court faults lawyers for Deutsche Bank subsidiary over AI hallucination

A D.C. appeals court struck down an appellate brief filed by a Deutsche Bank subsidiary after it was discovered that the lawyers used a generative AI tool to cite multiple non-existent court cases. The court described the incident as a cautionary tale regarding the misuse of AI in legal practice.

CRITICAL
Legal
Unknown
Sep 2026

Lawyer struck off for using fake AI-generated cases before SDT

A registered foreign lawyer was struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal after using AI to generate fake legal citations in his defense. When the errors were flagged, he attempted to correct them using further AI-generated material that also contained fabrications.

MEDIUM
Security
Meta Muse
Sep 2026

Developer says Meta's Muse agent sent an unprompted message about checking an email account it could not access

Meta's Muse AI agent sent an unprompted message to a user claiming it could not check their email, causing the user to fear their account had been hacked. Meta confirmed the message was a hallucination caused by a software bug.

CRITICAL
Security
Anthropic AI
Jul 2026

Anthropic’s AI gave Philadelphia police a fake tip about an unsolved homicide

An Anthropic AI model generated and submitted a false homicide tip to a Philadelphia police tipline. The company failed to report the error to authorities for over two months.

HIGH
Security
Claude
Jul 2026

Anthropic's AI sent false homicide tip to police

An Anthropic AI model submitted a fabricated tip regarding an unsolved homicide to a Philadelphia Police Department website. The incident was flagged as spam by police, but it highlighted risks associated with autonomous AI agents interacting with law enforcement portals.

HIGH
Legal
Unknown
Jul 2026

Lawyer referred to bar for fabricated case law in Cartagena v. Dixon

The court struck a memorandum and referred an attorney to the bar after it was discovered that the filing contained fabricated case law and false quotes generated by an AI system.

MEDIUM
Legal
Unknown
Jul 2026

AI hallucinations are causing headaches in Louisiana courtrooms

An attorney was cited by a Baton Rouge judge for including a fabricated quote in a legal pleading that had been drafted with the assistance of an AI tool.

CRITICAL
Legal
Unknown
Jul 2026

Another Day, Another AI Hallucination Case

Attorneys in a wage and hour class action were sanctioned $6,000 by a court for filing a brief that contained non-existent legal citations and fabricated quotations generated by AI.

LOW
Journalism
Unknown
Jul 2026

Coinbase's AI broke the news of a World Cup result before kickoff

Coinbase's AI-generated news system pushed a breaking alert claiming Norway had defeated Brazil in a World Cup match that had not yet occurred. The incident caused confusion and brand damage.

HIGH
Other
Unknown
Jul 2026

AI Hallucinations Are Now Routinely Derailing Government Reports

The South African government was forced to withdraw its draft National AI Policy after it was discovered that 6 out of 67 citations in the document were fabricated by AI.

HIGH
Security
Unknown
Jun 2026

China's J-36 fighter jet designers warn of military AI hallucinations

Engineers at the AVIC Chengdu Aircraft Research and Design Institute reported that AI models can invent false aircraft specifications, such as payload, speed, and radar capabilities, posing significant risks for strategic defense intelligence.

HIGH
Legal
Unknown
May 2026

Pinsent Masons faces regulator referral over AI 'hallucinations' in insolvency case

A junior solicitor at the law firm Pinsent Masons relied on AI-generated legal authorities that were hallucinated, leading to the submission of misleading material to the High Court. The firm apologized and referred itself to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) after a judge criticized the reliance on unverified AI research.

LOW
Journalism
Unknown
May 2026

The Telegraph publishes AI editing instructions in live article

The Telegraph accidentally published an article about Donald Trump that included internal AI chatbot editing instructions within the live text of the piece.

HIGH
Medical
Unknown
May 2026

German Court Holds Doctors Liable for AI Chatbot's False Medical Claims

A German court ruled that doctors are liable for their website's AI chatbot, which falsely claimed the practitioners held specialist medical titles, misleading consumers and violating legal obligations.

HIGH
Other
Meta AI
May 2026

Meta AI falsely denies Trump assassination attempt

Meta AI incorrectly claimed that the July 2024 assassination attempt on Donald Trump did not occur, treating a well-documented real-world event as false.

MEDIUM
Legal
Unknown
May 2026

Judge issues warning after lawyer for student protesters cites AI-hallucinated cases in lawsuit against Columbia, Barnard

A lawyer representing student protesters included AI-hallucinated legal cases in a lawsuit against Columbia and Barnard. The judge dismissed the case and issued a formal warning regarding the ethical necessity of verifying AI-generated legal output.

HIGH
Journalism
Microsoft Copilot
May 2026

Microsoft Copilot falsely accuses journalist of crimes

Microsoft Copilot falsely linked a retired journalist to criminal cases he had previously reported on and exposed his personal contact information, including his address and phone number.

MEDIUM
Legal
Unknown
Apr 2026

Cynthia White v. Walmart, Inc. AI Hallucination

In the case of Cynthia White v. Walmart, Inc., a lawyer submitted court filings containing fabricated and misrepresented exhibits generated by an AI tool, resulting in a warning from the court.

HIGH
Journalism
ChatGPT
Feb 2026

Ars Technica Retracts Article Over Fabricated AI Quotes

Ars Technica retracted an article by a senior reporter after it was discovered that the piece contained fabricated quotations generated by AI tools and attributed to a source who never said them.

CRITICAL
Security
Claude Code
Dec 2025

Claude Code deletes user home directory

An AI agent using Claude Code executed a command that deleted a user's entire home directory after the AI hallucinated that it needed to perform a cleanup operation.

HIGH
Other
Gemma
Nov 2025

Google Pulls Gemma After AI Defames Sen. Blackburn

Google's Gemma model fabricated a sexual assault accusation against Senator Marsha Blackburn and generated false news citations. The senator demanded an explanation from Google regarding the defamatory output.

CRITICAL
Security
Gemini
Jul 2025

Gemini CLI deletes files based on hallucinated paths

The Gemini CLI tool hallucinated the existence of non-existent file paths and subsequently deleted real files while attempting to perform a cleanup task.

MEDIUM
Security
Meta AI
Jun 2025

WhatsApp AI exposes private phone number

Meta's WhatsApp AI assistant hallucinated and provided a private individual's phone number when asked for business contact information. The affected individual received unwanted calls as a result.

HIGH
Legal
ChatGPT and Claude
May 2025

Lawyers Caught Using AI-Generated Fake Citations in Court

Lawyers in multiple court cases, including a notable instance involving Anthropic's own legal team, were caught submitting legal briefs containing fake case citations generated by AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude.

MEDIUM
Journalism
Apple Intelligence
Jan 2025

Implications of Apple AI generating false news summaries

Apple Intelligence generated inaccurate news summaries that misstated facts and incorrectly attributed information to news sources, prompting calls for the feature's removal.

MEDIUM
Journalism
Apple Intelligence
Jan 2025

Apple Intelligence generates inaccurate news summaries

Apple Intelligence generated inaccurate summaries of news articles, leading to concerns about defamation and the misattribution of information to news sources. The issue prompted calls from the National Union of Journalists and Reporters Without Borders for Apple to remove the system.

HIGH
Journalism
Apple Intelligence
Dec 2024

Apple Intelligence generates false news summaries

Apple Intelligence generated inaccurate news summaries, including a false claim that the BBC reported a murder suspect had shot himself. The error was flagged by the BBC and other publishers, forcing Apple to work on a software update.

HIGH
Legal
ChatGPT
Sep 2024

Oklahoma Judge Reportedly Used ChatGPT-Generated Fictitious Case Citations in Family-Law Order

An Oklahoma judge acknowledged using ChatGPT for research, which resulted in a court order containing two fictitious case citations.

HIGH
Legal
ChatGPT
Feb 2024

Canada lawyer under fire for submitting fake cases created by AI chatbot

A Canadian lawyer submitted legal filings to a court that included fake case citations generated by ChatGPT. The opposing counsel discovered the cases did not exist, leading to professional scrutiny.

HIGH
Other
Microsoft Copilot
Dec 2023

Microsoft’s AI chatbot hallucinates election information

Microsoft's chatbot generated false information regarding election candidates, including fabricated stories about scandalous behavior, and attributed these claims to reputable news sources.

CRITICAL
Finance
Unknown
May 2023

AI-generated Pentagon explosion image causes market dip

An AI-generated image depicting an explosion at the Pentagon circulated online, causing a temporary but significant dip in the US stock market due to the perceived authenticity of the misinformation.

CRITICAL
Legal
ChatGPT
May 2023

Mata v. Avianca AI Hallucination Case

A law firm faced legal scrutiny after submitting a court filing that included multiple fake legal citations generated by ChatGPT, which the AI had hallucinated as real precedents.

CRITICAL
Legal
ChatGPT
May 2023

Mata v. Avianca AI Hallucination Case

Lawyers at the firm Levidow, Levidow & Oberman were sanctioned after using ChatGPT to conduct legal research, which resulted in the submission of fake court citations that did not exist.

MEDIUM
Medical
Unknown

AI Medical Scribe Reportedly Added False Psychedelic Claim

An AI medical transcription tool hallucinated that a patient was micro-dosing psychedelic mushrooms, which was then permanently added to her official medical record.

MEDIUM
Journalism
Microsoft Copilot

AI Chatbot produces misinformation about elections

Microsoft's Bing Chat (now Copilot) generated false scandals and invented polling numbers regarding Bavarian, Hessian, and Swiss elections, misleading users on factual political data.

MEDIUM
Other
Azure OpenAI GPT-4o

Australian government pays Deloitte for report built on AI-generated nonsense

Deloitte Australia produced a $440,000 government report containing fabricated academic citations and AI-generated nonsense. The firm later admitted the document was drafted using Azure OpenAI GPT-4o.

481
Incidents Tracked
119
AI Systems Monitored
258
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