Erroneous Declined Transaction Notification by PayPal AI Assistant

June 19, 2024

On July 13th, 2024, a user encountered an issue with PayPal's generative AI chatbot. The bot reportedly issued a declined transaction alert that did not occur, causing confusion and the need for customer service intervention. This instance underscores the importance of reliable AI systems, and highlights potential harm when AI is deployed without rigorous testing and error handling measures.

This incident underscores the need for robust governance in AI deployment, such as the HISPI Project Cerebellum TAIM (Govern) to ensure safe and secure AI practices. JOIN US to learn more about our efforts in harm prevention and guardrails for AI.

Matched TAIM controls

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

MANAGE 4.3 — similarity 0.648, rank 1. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MEASURE 2.6 — similarity 0.637, rank 2. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MANAGE 4.1 — similarity 0.629, rank 3. TAIM detail and related incidents →

Alleged deployer: paypal
Alleged developer: paypal
Alleged harmed parties: kiri-wagstaff, paypal-customer-service-representatives, paypal-customers

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/748

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.