AI Incidents
Real-world cases where AI systems caused harm, classified by risk domain and entity. Data sourced from 
AIID and classified by 
MIT AI Risk Initiative. CC BY-SA 4.0
217 incidents
Facebook's Advertisement Moderation System Allegedly Routinely Misidentified Adaptive Fashion Products as Medical Equipment and Blocked Their Sellers
Facebook platforms' automated ad moderation system falsely classified adaptive fashion products as medical and health care products and services, resulting in regular bans and appeals faced by their retailers.
Remote Proctoring Facial-Detection Software Reportedly Failed to Detect Black Student During Lab Quiz
In February 2021, a Black college student, Amaya Ross, reportedly tried to take a remote biology lab quiz using proctoring software that could not detect her face. Ross said she spent 45 minutes changing lights, shades, position, and background before pointing an LED flashlight at her face so the app would work; the quiz itself was only 30 minutes.
TikTok’s Content Moderation Allegedly Failed to Adequately Take down Videos Promoting Eating Disorders
Videos promoting eating disorders evaded TikTok's automated violation detection system without difficulty via common misspellings of search terms, bypassing its ban of violating hashtags such as "proana" and "anorexia".
FaceApp Predicted Different Genders for Similar User Photos with Slight Variations
FaceApp’s algorithm was reported by a user to have predicted different genders for two mostly identical facial photos with only a slight difference in eyebrow thickness.
Korean Chatbot Luda Reportedly Made Offensive Remarks Towards Minority Groups in South Korea
A Korean interactive chatbot was allegedly shown in screenshots to have used derogatory and bigoted language when asked about lesbians, Black people, and people with disabilities.
Online Trolls Allegedly Abused TikTok’s Automated Content Reporting System to Discriminate against Marginalized Creators
TikTok's automated content reporting system was allegedly abused by online trolls to intentionally misreport content created by users of marginalized groups.
Proctoring Algorithm in Online California Bar Exam Flagged an Unusually High Number of Alleged Cheaters
The proctoring algorithm used in a California bar exam cited a third of thousands of applicants as cheaters, resulting in allegations where exam takers were instructed to prove otherwise without seeing their incriminating video evidence.
Court Rules Deliveroo Used 'Discriminatory' Algorithm
In December 2020, an Italian court ruled that Deliveroo’s employee ‘reliability’ algorithm illegally discriminated against workers with legitimate reasons for cancelling shifts.
AI Spam Filters Allegedly Block Legitimate Emails Based on Biased Keyword Detection
AlgorithmWatch tested spam filtering algorithms across Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, GMX, and LaPoste. Their findings reportedly showed that Microsoft Outlook’s spam filter flagged emails based on specific keywords that led to racial and content-based biases blocking legitimate communications. Emails mentioning Nigeria or containing certain financial and sexual health terms were found to be disproportionately marked as spam.
Researchers find evidence of racial, gender, and socioeconomic bias in chest X-ray classifiers
A study by the University of Toronto, the Vector Institute, and MIT showed the input databases that trained AI systems used to classify chest X-rays led the systems to show gender, socioeconomic, and racial biases.
UK passport photo checker shows bias against dark-skinned women
UK passport photo checker shows bias against dark-skinned women.
Twitter’s Image Cropping Tool Allegedly Showed Gender and Racial Bias
Twitter's photo cropping algorithm was revealed by researchers to favor white and women faces in photos containing multiple faces, prompting the company to stop its use on mobile platform.
Philosophy AI Tentatively Produced Offensive Results for Certain Prompts
Philosopher AI as built on top of GPT-3 was reported by its users for having strong tendencies to produce offensive results when given prompts on certain topics such as feminism and Ethiopia.
UK Ofqual's Algorithm Disproportionately Provided Lower Grades Than Teachers' Assessments
UK Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual)'s grade-standardization algorithm providing predicted grades for A level and GCSE qualifications in the UK, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland was reportedly giving grades lower than teachers' assessments, and disproportionately for state schools.
OpenAI's GPT-3 Associated Muslims with Violence
Users and researchers revealed generative AI GPT-3 associating Muslims to violence in prompts, resulting in disturbingly racist and explicit outputs such as casting Muslim actor as a terrorist.