Kalibrate Fuel Pricing Allegedly Enabled California Gas Station Operators to Coordinate Higher Pump Prices
June 22, 2022
A June 2026 complaint said the AI-based system increased gasoline prices by as much as 30 cents per gallon where adoption was widespread. Through an examination of industry practices, some experts have suggested that such coordinated pricing could be a form of anticompetitive behavior, prompting calls for greater regulation of the fuel pricing market.
The incident highlights the need for responsible AI practices in industries with significant price and supply chain impact, and underscores the importance of ensuring that AI systems are transparent, accountable, and aligned with guardrails for AI. Contributors—[JOIN US]—to learn more about the implications of this incident and how to promote trustworthy AI practices.
- Alleged deployer
- marathon-petroleum, 7-eleven, speedway, eg-america, bp-products-north-america, travelcenters-of-america, walmart, sam's-club, circle-k, albertsons-companies, gas-station-operators, fuel-retailers
- Alleged developer
- kalibrate, algorithmic-pricing-system-developers, software-developers
- Alleged harmed parties
- california-gasoline-purchasers, california-drivers, drivers, road-users, consumers, retail-gasoline-market-competition-in-california, general-public, general-public-of-california
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Source
Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1559
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
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