Warehouse robot ruptures can of bear spray and injures workers

December 5, 2018

Twenty-four workers were hospitalized after an AI-controlled robot in a New Jersey Amazon warehouse accidentally punctured a can of bear repellent spray. This unfortunate incident underscores the need for trustworthy and safe AI practices. For those interested in shaping the future of responsible AI governance, we invite you to join the HISPI Project Cerebellum community by clicking JOIN US. This incident serves as a reminder of the importance of managing such systems effectively to prevent harm and ensure secure AI operations.

Matched TAIM controls

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

MEASURE 2.6 — similarity 0.718, rank 1. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MANAGE 4.3 — similarity 0.685, rank 2. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MANAGE 4.1 — similarity 0.668, rank 3. TAIM detail and related incidents →

Alleged deployer: amazon
Alleged developer: amazon
Alleged harmed parties: warehouse-workers

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/2

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.