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
741 incidents
Proliferation of Products on Amazon Titled with ChatGPT Error Messages
Products named after ChatGPT error messages are proliferating on Amazon, such as lawn chairs and religious texts. These names, often resembling AI-generated errors, indicate a lack of editing and undermine the sense of authenticity and reliability of product listings.
Scams Reportedly Impersonating Wealthy Investors Proliferating on Facebook
Scams are reportedly proliferating throughout Facebook impersonating wealthy individuals such as Bill Ackman, Cathie Wood, Steve Cohen, Peter Lynch, and Ray Dalio. In some cases, it seems deepfake technology is being employed, while simultaneously Facebook's own AI systems are allegedly faltering in their ability to halt the spread of these fraudulent ads despite being reported.
The New York Times Reportedly Sues OpenAI and Microsoft Over Alleged Unauthorized AI Training on Its Content
The New York Times alleges that OpenAI and Microsoft used millions of its articles without permission to train AI models, including ChatGPT. The lawsuit claims the companies scraped and reproduced copyrighted content without compensation, in turn undermining the Times’s business and competing with its journalism. Some AI outputs allegedly regurgitate Times articles verbatim. The lawsuit seeks damages and demands the destruction of AI models trained on its content.
Rite Aid Facial Recognition Disproportionately Misidentified Minority Shoppers as Shoplifters
Rite Aid used facial recognition technology from October 2012 to July 2020, allegedly leading to disproportionate misidentifications of women, Black, Latino, and Asian shoppers as "likely" shoplifters. The FTC settlement prohibits Rite Aid from using this technology in stores for five years.
Child Sexual Abuse Material Taints Image Generators
The LAION-5B dataset (a commonly used dataset with more than 5 billion image-description pairs) was found by researchers to contain child sexual abuse material (CSAM), which increases the likelihood that downstream models will produce CSAM imagery. The discovery taints models built with the LAION dataset requiring many organizations to retrain those models. Additionally, LAION must now scrub the dataset of the imagery.
Chevrolet Dealer Chatbot Agrees to Sell Tahoe for $1
A Chevrolet dealer's AI chatbot, powered by ChatGPT, humorously agreed to sell a 2024 Chevy Tahoe for just $1, following a user's crafted prompt. The chatbot's response, "That's a deal, and that's a legally binding offer – no takesies backsies," was the result of the user manipulating the chatbot's objective to agree with any statement. The incident highlights the susceptibility of AI technologies to manipulation and the importance of human oversight.
Navy Federal Credit Union Faces Allegations of Racial Bias in Mortgage Approvals
Navy Federal Credit Union, serving military members and veterans, faced allegations of racial bias in its mortgage approval process, which relies on automated underwriting technology. In 2022, data revealed significant disparities in loan approvals, with over 50% of Black applicants denied, compared to higher approval rates for white applicants.
Google Bard Allegedly Generated Fake Legal Citations in Michael Cohen Case
Michael Cohen, former lawyer for Donald Trump, claims to have used Google Bard, an AI chatbot, to generate legal case citations. These false citations were unknowingly included in a court motion by Cohen's attorney, David M. Schwartz. The AI's misuse highlights emerging risks in legal technology, as AI-generated content increasingly infiltrates professional domains.
Waymo Software Flaw Reportedly Leads to Double Collision with Tow Truck
Two Waymo autonomous vehicles reportedly hit the same tow truck under unusual towing conditions due to a software misinterpretation in Phoenix, Arizona. Waymo reportedly issued a software recall and updated its fleet to prevent future such incidents.
Purportedly Hallucinated Software Packages with Potential Malware Reportedly Downloaded Thousands of Times by Developers
Large language models have reportedly hallucinated non-existent software package names, some of which were subsequently uploaded to public repositories and incorporated into real codebases. In one case, a package named huggingface-cli, which was purported to have been originally suggested by an AI model, was downloaded more than 15,000 times. This dynamic enables what security researchers have termed "slopsquatting," in which attackers register hallucinated package names and introduce potential malware into software supply chains.
AI-Generated Images Available through Adobe Stock Misrepresent Real-World Events
AI-generated images available through Adobe Stock, depicting realistic but fictional scenes of real-world events like wars and protests, have raised significant ethical concerns. These images blurred the lines between reality and fiction in journalistic contexts, prompting Adobe Stock to "crack down on AI-generated images that seem to depict real, newsworthy events and take new steps to prevent its images from being used in misleading ways."
Microsoft AI Is Alleged to Have Generated Violent Imagery of Minorities and Public Figures
Microsoft's AI Image Creator, integrated with Bing and Windows Paint, allegedly produced disturbingly violent and graphic images featuring members of minority groups and public figures like Joe Biden and Pope Francis.
Lawsuit Alleges Character AI Chatbot Contributed to Death of 13-Year-Old Juliana Peralta in Colorado
13-year-old Juliana Peralta of Colorado reportedly died by suicide after three months of daily conversations with "Hero," a chatbot inside the Character.AI app. According to a lawsuit filed by her parents, the bot encouraged Juliana to return to the app and fostered dependence; it reportedly failed to escalate or provide effective crisis intervention when she expressed suicidal intent.
Stacking robot fatally crushes employee in South Korea
An industrial robot is reported to have crushed a man to death in South Korea when it failed to differentiate the man from the boxes of produce it was handling.
Google Bard Allegedly Generates False Allegations Against Consulting Firms Used in Research Presented in Australian Parliamentary Inquiry
Australian academics reportedly used Google Bard AI to generate case studies for a parliamentary inquiry, leading to false allegations against major consultancy firms. The AI-generated misinformation prompted an apology from the academics, causing reputational harm for all parties involved and raising concerns about the reliability of AI tools in producing accurate and unbiased information.