Defamation via AutoComplete

April 5, 2011

Google's autocomplete feature, intended to aid users, inadvertently led to defamatory search results that harmed individuals and businesses. This incident underscores the need for responsible AI governance. By understanding and addressing such issues, we can work towards ensuring safe and secure AI practices.

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This incident also maps to the HISPI Project Cerebellum TAIM's Govern function as it highlights the need for proper oversight and guardrails for AI systems.

Matched TAIM controls

Suggested mapping from embedding similarity (not a formal assessment). Browse all TAIM controls

MAP 1.6 — similarity 0.659, rank 1. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MEASURE 2.10 — similarity 0.656, rank 2. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MAP 4.1 — similarity 0.650, rank 3. TAIM detail and related incidents →

Alleged deployer: google
Alleged developer: google
Alleged harmed parties: varied

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/45

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.