Google Photo App Mistakes Black Couple for Gorillas: A Case Study in AI Incident Management

In an unfortunate incident that underscores the need for responsible AI governance, Google's photo application misclassified a black couple as gorillas. The mistake, which highlights the potential harm that can arise from insufficient safeguards in AI systems, has sparked conversations about the importance of trustworthy AI models and their management. This incident serves as a crucial reminder of the need for safe and secure AI practices, especially when dealing with sensitive content.

Matched TAIM controls

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

MAP 1.6 — similarity 0.457, rank 1. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MEASURE 2.10 — similarity 0.450, rank 2. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MAP 1.3 — similarity 0.448, rank 3. TAIM detail and related incidents →

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/16

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.