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
961 incidents
Colorado Police’s Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) Matched a Family’s Minivan’s Plate to That of a Stolen Vehicle Allegedly, Resulting in Detainment at Gunpoint
An automated plate reader reportedly matched a license plate information, but of a family’s minivan and an alleged motorcycle in Montana that was reportedly stolen earlier in the year, resulting in them and their children being held at gunpoint and detained in handcuffs by multiple Aurora police officers.
Genderify’s AI to Predict a Person’s Gender Revealed by Free API Users to Exhibit Bias
A company's AI predicting a person's gender based on their name, email address, or username was reported by its users to show biased and inaccurate results.
Facebook Provided Offensive Translation for King of Thailand's Birthday Ceremony
Facebook's Thai-English translation gave an inappropriate mistranslation on Thai PBS's Facebook live broadcast of the King of Thailand’s candle-lighting birthday ceremony.
Thoughts App Allegedly Created Toxic Tweets
Tweets created by Thoughts, a tweet generation app that leverages OpenAI’s GPT-3, allegedly exhibited toxicity when given prompts related to minority groups.
International Baccalaureate’s 2020 Calculated-Grades Model Reportedly Lowered Students' Scores and College Prospects
After Covid-19 canceled May 2020 exams, the Geneva-based International Baccalaureate reportedly used a calculated-grades model based on coursework, predicted grades, and historical school results to estimate final marks. Students, parents, and teachers reportedly said the opaque model produced unexpectedly low scores, threatening university admissions, scholarships, and study plans across multiple countries.
NarxCare’s Risk Score Model Allegedly Lacked Validation and Trained on Data with High Risk of Bias
NarxCare's overdose risk algorithm, lacking peer-reviewed validation, uses sensitive data like doctor visits, prescriptions, and possibly genetic information, leading to significant biases against women and Black patients. Factors like sexual abuse and criminal records exacerbate stigmas and disparities, often resulting in unjust denial of necessary pain medication. The newly approved AvertD genetic test shares similar issues, further complicating and potentially harming medical treatment decisions.
Facebook’s Political Ad Detection Reportedly Showed High and Geographically Uneven Error Rates
The performance of Facebook’s political ad detection was revealed by researchers to be imprecise, uneven across countries in errors, and inadequate for preventing systematic violations of political advertising policies.
Reported AI-Assisted Influence Campaigns by GoLaxy Allegedly Targeting Hong Kong and Taiwan Political Discourse
Reportedly leaked documents reviewed by researchers and media allege that Chinese firm GoLaxy used its "GoPro" AI system in multiple influence campaigns. In 2020, it reportedly tracked 180,000 Twitter accounts to counter opposition to Hong Kong's National Security Law; in 2022–2023, it amplified praise for China's Zero Covid policy using purportedly fake Facebook accounts; and in late 2023, allegedly it advised on messaging to weaken Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party.
YouTube's AI Mistakenly Banned Chess Channel over Chess Language Misinterpretation
YouTube's AI-powered hate speech detection system falsely flagged chess content and banned chess creators allegedly due to its misinterpretation of strategy language such as "black," "white," and "attack" as harmful and dangerous.
Facebook's AI Put "Primates" Label on Video Featuring Black Men
Facebook's AI mislabeled video featuring Black men as a video about "primates," resulting in an offensive prompt message for users who watched the video.
Miami Police Deployed Facial Recognition to Arrest George Floyd Protestor Allegedly without Cause
Miami Police's arrest report for a George Floyd protestor did not disclose use of facial recognition, which allegedly did not meet the legal threshold for probable cause for arrest.
Image Upscaling Algorithm PULSE Allegedly Produced Facial Images with Caucasian Features More Often
Image upscaling tool PULSE powered by NVIDIA's StyleGAN reportedly generated faces with Caucasian features more often, although AI academics, engineers, and researchers were not in agreement about where the source of bias was.
Uber Allegedly Violated GDPR by Failing to Provide Sufficient Notice on Automated Profiling for Drivers
Uber was alleged in a lawsuit to have provided incomplete notice about automated decision-making and profiling for drivers such as information about their driving behavior, and use of phone.
AI translation is jeopardizing Afghan asylum claims
A Pashto-speaking refugee's asylum claim was denied by a US agency for a discrepancy between oral and written recount of an event allegedly due to an error of their automated translation tool which swapped pronouns of her written statement from "I" to "we".
iGPT, SimCLR Learned Biased Associations from Internet Training Data
Unsupervised image generation models trained using Internet images such as iGPT and SimCLR were shown to have embedded racial, gender, and intersectional biases, resulting in stereotypical depictions.