Values Statement: We believe AI should cause no harm, but enhance the quality of human life, by proactively adopting our AI Governance framework.

Evidence-based Transparent For governance

AI Incidents

TAIM catalog Map Data source & citation Failure Files™

Facebook’s On-This-Day Feature Mistakenly Showed Painful Memories to Users

Mar 24, 2015

Facebook's 'On This Day' algorithm, intended to revisit cherished moments, inadvertently resurfaced distressing personal memories for some u...

Tinder's Personalized Pricing Algorithm Found to Offer Higher Prices for Older Users

Mar 1, 2015

Tinder's personalized pricing strategy, according to Consumers International, may take age into account, potentially infringing on age-based...

UK Visa Streamline Algorithm Allegedly Discriminated Based on Nationality

Mar 1, 2015

The UK Home Office's visa application risk assessment algorithm, under question, reportedly took nationality into account, potentially leadi...

UK Home Office's Sham Marriage Detection Algorithm Reportedly Flagged Certain Nationalities Disproportionately

Mar 1, 2015

The opaque algorithm employed by the UK Home Office to detect potential sham marriages has reportedly flagged certain nationalities more fre...

Oracle's Algorithmic Data Processing System Alleged as Unlawful and Violating Privacy Rights

Dec 22, 2014

A lawsuit has been filed against Oracle's automated system, highlighting concerns over its algorithmic data processing practices. The system...

Facebook Automated Year-in-Review Highlights Showed Users Painful Memories

Dec 9, 2014

Facebook's 'Year in Review' algorithm, intended to showcase users' cherished memories, unfortunately surfaced painful and unwanted recollect...

Employee Automatically Terminated by Computer Program

Oct 18, 2014

An employee was terminated by an artificially intelligent HR system, reportedly without proper oversight or appeal process. The incident hig...

Uber Deployed Secret Program To Deny Local Authorities Rides

Oct 1, 2014

Uber developed a clandestine program, Greyball, intended to bypass known law enforcement officers in regions where its service contradicted...

US DHS’s Opaque Vetting Software Allegedly Relied on Poor-Quality Data and Discriminated against Immigrants

Aug 26, 2014

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)'s ATLAS software has come under fire from advocacy groups for its secretive decision-mak...

Uber Autonomous Cars Running Red Lights

Aug 15, 2014

Uber autonomous vehicles, while undergoing testing in San Francisco, have been observed running red lights. Such incidents underscore the ne...

Kronos Scheduling Algorithm Allegedly Caused Financial Issues for Starbucks Employees

Aug 14, 2014

The use of the Kronos scheduling algorithm by Starbucks managers has been alleged to cause financial and scheduling instability for wage wor...

Robot kills worker at German Volkswagen plant

Jul 15, 2014

A tragic incident occurred at a Volkswagen plant where a robot, presumably governed by an AI system, inadvertently pinned a worker to a meta...

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.