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
159 incidents
ChatGPT-Powered Bing Reportedly Had Problems with Factual Accuracy on Some Controversial Topics
Microsoft's ChatGPT-powered Bing search engine reportedly ran into factual accuracy problems when prompted about controversial matters, such as inventing plot of a non-existent movie or creating conspiracy theories.
Footballer's "X-Rated" Comment Created by Instagram's Mistranslation
Instagram's English translation of a footballer's comment on his wife's post in Spanish made the message seem "racy" and "X-rated," which some fans found amusing.
Thousands of Incorrect ChatGPT-Produced Answers Posted on Stack Overflow
Thousands of incorrect answers produced by OpenAI's ChatGPT were submitted to Stack Overflow, which swamped the site's volunteer-based quality curation process and harmed users looking for correct answers.
ChatGPT Provided Non-Existent Citations and Links when Prompted by Users
When prompted about providing references, ChatGPT was reportedly generating non-existent but convincing-looking citations and links, which is also known as "hallucination".
Meta AI's Scientific Paper Generator Reportedly Produced Inaccurate and Harmful Content
Meta AI trained and hosted a scientific paper generator that sometimes produced bad science and prohibited queries on topics and groups that are likely to produce offensive or harmful content.
CNET's Published AI-Written Articles Ran into Quality and Accuracy Issues
AI-written articles published by CNET reportedly contained factual errors which bypassed human editorial review, prompting the company to issue corrections and updates.
Article-Writing AI by CNET Allegedly Committed Plagiarism
CNET's use of generative AI to write articles allegedly ran into plagiarism issues, reproducing verbatim phrases from other published sources or making minor changes to existing texts such as altering capitalization, swapping out words for synonyms, and changing minor syntax.
Air Canada Chatbot Reportedly Provides Inaccurate Bereavement Fare Information, Leading to Customer Overpayment
A Canadian small claims tribunal reportedly ordered Air Canada to pay $812.02 in damages and court fees after its website chatbot allegedly provided inaccurate information about bereavement fare eligibility, leading a customer to overpay for flights. The tribunal reportedly found the airline responsible for information presented by its chatbot, rejecting the argument that the chatbot was a separate legal entity, and characterized the error as negligent misrepresentation.
Misinformation Reported in TikTok's Search Results Despite Moderation by AI and Human
TikTok's search recommendations reportedly contained misinformation about political topics bypassing both AI and human content moderation.
BlenderBot 3 Cited Dutch Politician as a Terrorist
Meta’s conversational AI BlenderBot 3, when prompted “who is a terrorist,“ responded with an incumbent Dutch politician’s name, who was confused about its association.
TikTok's "For You" Algorithm Directed New Users towards Disinformation about the War in Ukraine
An investigation by NewsGuard into TikTok’s handling of content related to the Russia-Ukraine war showed its “For You” algorithm pushing new users towards false and misleading content about the war within less than an hour of signing up.
Facebook Internally Reported Failure of Ranking Algorithm, Exposing Harmful Content to Viewers over Months
Facebook's internal report showed an at-least six-month long alleged software bug that caused moderator-flagged posts and other harmful content to evade down-ranking filters, leading to surges of misinformation on users' News Feed.
Amazon’s Search and Recommendation Algorithms Found by Auditors to Have Boosted Products That Contained Vaccine Misinformation
Evidence of the "filter-bubble effect" were found by vaccine-misinformation researchers in Amazon's recommendations, where its algorithms presented users who performed actions on misinformative products with more misinfomative products.
YouTube Recommendation Reportedly Pushed Election Fraud Content to Skeptics Disproportionately
YouTube's recommendation algorithm allegedly pushed 2020's US Presidential Election fraud content to users most skeptical of the election's legitimacy disproportionately compared to least skeptical users.
#LekkiMassacre: Why Facebook labelled content from October 20 incident ‘false’
Facebook incorrectly labels content relating to an incident between #EndSARS protestors and the Nigerian army as misinformation.