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
1,751 incidents
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.
#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.
Tesla Disabled “Rolling Stop” Functionality Associated with the “Aggressive” Driving Mode
The “rolling stop” functionality within the “Aggressive” Full Self Driving (FSD) profile that was released via a Tesla firmware update was recalled and disabled.
Tiny Changes Let False Claims About COVID-19, Voting Evade Facebook Fact Checks
Avaaz, an international advocacy group, released a review of Facebook's misinformation identifying software showing that the labeling process failed to label 42% of false information posts, most surrounding COVID-19 and the 2020 USA Presidential Election.
AI attempts to ease fear of robots, blurts out it can’t ‘avoid destroying humankind’
On September 8, 2020, the Guardian published an op-ed generated by OpenAI’s GPT-3 text generating AI that included threats to destroy humankind. This incident has been downgraded to an issue as it does not meet current ingestion criteria.
Ireland's 2020 Leaving Certificate Calculated-Grades Model Reportedly Issued Incorrect Scores to Thousands of Students
After Covid-19 disrupted the 2020 Leaving Certificate exams, Ireland's Department of Education and Skills used a calculated-grades model to issue student results on September 7. The Department later confirmed coding errors in how the model handled Junior Cycle data, resulting in incorrect grades. About 6,100 students received upgraded results, and college-offer eligibility had to be reassessed.
UK passport photo checker shows bias against dark-skinned women
UK passport photo checker shows bias against dark-skinned women.
Korean Internet Portal Giant Naver Manipulated Shopping and Video Search Algorithms to Favor In-House Services
The Korean Fair Trade Commission (FTC) imposed a 26.7B KRW on Naver for manipulating shopping and video search algorithms, favoring its own online shopping business to boost its market share.
Facebook’s Algorithm Mistook an Advertisement of Onions as Sexual Suggestive Content
Facebook’s content moderation algorithm misidentified and removed a Canadian business’s advertisement containing a photo of onions as products of overtly sexual content, which was later reinstated after review.
Amazon’s Robotic Fulfillment Centers Have Higher Serious Injury Rates
Amazon’s robotic fulfillment centers have higher serious injury rates.
Suicide Clips Evaded TikTok's Automated Moderation in Coordinated Attack
Many clips showing a suicide evaded TikTok's automated content moderation system allegedly in a coordinated attack, which resulted in exposure of violating content to its users.
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.
Philosophy AI Allegedly Used To Generate Mixture of Innocent and Harmful Reddit Posts
Philosopher AI, a GPT-3-powered controversial text generator, was allegedly used by an anonymous actor on AskReddit subreddit, whose posts featured a mixture of harmless stories, conspiracy theories, and sensitive topic discussions.
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.