Racially Insensitive Labeling in Google Photos Misidentifies Black Individuals as 'Gorillas'

In a recent incident, users of Google Photos discovered the photo-sorting software mislabeled black people as 'gorillas'. This unintentional mishap highlights the need for responsible AI governance and trustworthy AI models that prioritize harm prevention. The incident underscores the importance of implementing robust guardrails for AI to ensure safe and secure operation.

Matched TAIM controls

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

MAP 1.6 — similarity 0.474, rank 1. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MEASURE 2.2 — similarity 0.464, rank 2. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MAP 3.5 — similarity 0.462, 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.