AI incident #156 · 4 February 2022

Amazon Reportedly Sold Products and Recommended Frequently Bought Together Items That Aid Suicide Attempts

Open on the AI Incident Database 2 news reports Snapshot 7 Sep 2026

What happened

Despite complaints notifying Amazon about the sale of various products that had been used to aid suicide attempts, its recommendation system reportedly continued selling them and suggesting their frequently bought-together items.

Only the incident metadata is stored here. The underlying news reports are on the AI Incident Database (CC BY-SA 4.0); use the links above to read them.

News reports (2)

Coverage catalogued by the AI Incident Database. Titles link to the original publisher; the text is not reproduced here.

4 Feb 2022
Amazon's algorithm suggests products for suicide attempts
nytimes.com · Megan Twohey, Gabriel J.X. Dance · AIID #1515
29 Sep 2022
Complaint For Civil Penalties and Demand for a Jury Trial
cdn.arstechnica.net · C. A. Goldberg PLLC · AIID #2197

Who was involved

Alleged deployer: Amazon
Alleged developer: Amazon
Alleged harmed party: People Attempting Suicides

Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)

Risk domain: Human-Computer Interaction
Risk subdomain: 5.1 Overreliance and unsafe use
Causal entity: AI
Intent: Unintentional
Timing: Post-deployment
Harm level: none
Sectors: wholesale and retail trade
Countries: —

Risk entries describing this failure mode

Entries from the MIT AI Risk Repository coded to subdomain 5.1.

Addiction
"Addiction - Emotional or material dependence on technology or a technology system."
A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)
Overreliance
"Over-reliance - Unfettered and/or obsessive belief in the accuracy or other quality of a technology system, resulting in addiction, anxiety, introversion, sentience, complacency, lack of critical thinking and other actu...
A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)
Economic instability
"Economic instability - Uncontrolled fluctuations impacting the financial system, or parts thereof, due to the use or misuse of a technology system, or set of systems."
A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)
Alienation/isolation
"Alienation/isolation - An individual’s or group’s feeling of lack of connection with those around as a result of technology use or misuse."
A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)
Social manipulation in elderly- and child-care
" the use of advanced AI for elderly- and child-care are subject to risk of psychological manipulation and misjudgment "
The Rise of Artificial Intelligence - Future Outlooks and Emerging Risks (Allianz2018)
Healthcare
"the use of advanced AI for elderly- and child-care are subject to risk of psychological manipulation and misjudgment (see page 17). In addition, concerns about patients’ privacy when AI uses medical records to research...
The Rise of Artificial Intelligence - Future Outlooks and Emerging Risks (Allianz2018)
Alteration of social relationships may induce psychological distress
The Rise of Artificial Intelligence - Future Outlooks and Emerging Risks (Allianz2018)
Inconsistent Performance across and within Domains
"Estimating true capabilities of an LLM is a difficult task (c.f. Section 3.3), especially for naive users unfamiliar with the brittle nature of machine learning technologies. Exaggeration of model capabilities by the de...
Foundational Challenges in Assuring Alignment and Safety of Large Language Models (Anwar2024)

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