AI Incident: Amazon's Automated Recommendation of Explosive-Producing Ingredients – A Harm Prevention Concern

September 18, 2017

The AI governance function in Project Cerebellum's Trusted AI Model (TAIM) highlights this incident involving Amazon's automated recommendation system. The system reportedly suggested chemical combinations for producing explosives as 'frequently bought together' items, potentially posing a safety risk. It underscores the need for trustworthy and safe AI. Ready to help shape responsible AI? JOIN US
Alleged deployer
amazon
Alleged developer
amazon
Alleged harmed parties
amazon-users

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/329

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.