AI Incident Database
Browse AI incidents
Every incident record (metadata only) from the weekly snapshot of 2026-09-07. Filter, then export the selection with its licence attached; each row links to the full record and its reports.
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Twitter’s Image Cropping Tool Allegedly Showed Gender and Racial Bias AIID ↗
Twitter's photo cropping algorithm was revealed by researchers to favor white and women faces in photos containing multiple faces, prompting the company to stop its use on mobile platform.
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Philosophy AI Tentatively Produced Offensive Results for Certain Prompts AIID ↗
Philosopher AI as built on top of GPT-3 was reported by its users for having strong tendencies to produce offensive results when given prompts on certain topics such as feminism and Ethiopia.
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Philosophy AI Allegedly Used To Generate Mixture of Innocent and Harmful Reddit Posts AIID ↗
Philosopher AI, a GPT-3-powered controversial text generator, was allegedly used by an anonymous actor on AskReddit subreddit, whose posts featured a mixture of harmless stories, conspiracy theories, and sensitive topic discussions.
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UK Ofqual's Algorithm Disproportionately Provided Lower Grades Than Teachers' Assessments AIID ↗
UK Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual)'s grade-standardization algorithm providing predicted grades for A level and GCSE qualifications in the UK, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland was reportedly giving grades lower than teachers' assessments, and disproportionately for state schools.
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Activists Allege NYPD's Application of Facial Recognition Interfered with Right to Protest AIID ↗
Black Lives Matter activists alleged being targeted for arrest by New York Police using facial recognition, interfering with their right to protest.
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OpenAI's GPT-3 Associated Muslims with Violence AIID ↗
Users and researchers revealed generative AI GPT-3 associating Muslims to violence in prompts, resulting in disturbingly racist and explicit outputs such as casting Muslim actor as a terrorist.
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Bug in Instagram’s “Related Hashtags” Algorithm Allegedly Caused Disproportionate Treatment of Political Hashtags AIID ↗
A bug was reported by Instagram’s spokesperson to have prevented an algorithm from populating related hashtags for thousands of hashtags, resulting in an allege preferential treatment for some politically partisan hashtags.
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Colorado Police’s Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) Matched a Family’s Minivan’s Plate to That of a Stolen Vehicle Allegedly, Resulting in Detainment at Gunpoint AIID ↗
An automated plate reader reportedly matched a license plate information, but of a family’s minivan and an alleged motorcycle in Montana that was reportedly stolen earlier in the year, resulting in them and their children being held at gunpoint and detained in handcuffs by multiple Aurora police officers.
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Facebook Provided Offensive Translation for King of Thailand's Birthday Ceremony AIID ↗
Facebook's Thai-English translation gave an inappropriate mistranslation on Thai PBS's Facebook live broadcast of the King of Thailand’s candle-lighting birthday ceremony.
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Genderify’s AI to Predict a Person’s Gender Revealed by Free API Users to Exhibit Bias AIID ↗
A company's AI predicting a person's gender based on their name, email address, or username was reported by its users to show biased and inaccurate results.
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Thoughts App Allegedly Created Toxic Tweets AIID ↗
Tweets created by Thoughts, a tweet generation app that leverages OpenAI’s GPT-3, allegedly exhibited toxicity when given prompts related to minority groups.
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Deepfake Images of Australian Teacher Hannah Grundy and 25 Others Created and Circulated Online by Former Friend AIID ↗
Australian teacher Hannah Grundy discovered her face had been superimposed onto pornographic images using AI deepfake technology, which were shared online alongside personal details. A former trusted friend, Andrew Thomas Hayler, was found responsible, targeting 26 women, including Grundy and close friends, over two years. Hayler pleaded guilty to multiple charges and was sentenced to nine years in prison.
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International Baccalaureate’s 2020 Calculated-Grades Model Reportedly Lowered Students' Scores and College Prospects AIID ↗
After Covid-19 canceled May 2020 exams, the Geneva-based International Baccalaureate reportedly used a calculated-grades model based on coursework, predicted grades, and historical school results to estimate final marks. Students, parents, and teachers reportedly said the opaque model produced unexpectedly low scores, threatening university admissions, scholarships, and study plans across multiple countries.
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WeChat Pay's Facial Recognition Security Evaded by Scammers Using Victims’ Social Media Content AIID ↗
In China, fraudsters bypassed facial-recognition security for online financial transactions on WeChat Pay by crafting identity-verification GIFs of victims from their selfies on WeChat Moments, a social media platform.
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Facebook’s Political Ad Detection Reportedly Showed High and Geographically Uneven Error Rates AIID ↗
The performance of Facebook’s political ad detection was revealed by researchers to be imprecise, uneven across countries in errors, and inadequate for preventing systematic violations of political advertising policies.
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NarxCare’s Risk Score Model Allegedly Lacked Validation and Trained on Data with High Risk of Bias AIID ↗
NarxCare's overdose risk algorithm, lacking peer-reviewed validation, uses sensitive data like doctor visits, prescriptions, and possibly genetic information, leading to significant biases against women and Black patients. Factors like sexual abuse and criminal records exacerbate stigmas and disparities, often resulting in unjust denial of necessary pain medication. The newly approved AvertD genetic test shares similar issues, further complicating and potentially harming medical treatment decisi
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Reported AI-Assisted Influence Campaigns by GoLaxy Allegedly Targeting Hong Kong and Taiwan Political Discourse AIID ↗
Reportedly leaked documents reviewed by researchers and media allege that Chinese firm GoLaxy used its "GoPro" AI system in multiple influence campaigns. In 2020, it reportedly tracked 180,000 Twitter accounts to counter opposition to Hong Kong's National Security Law; in 2022–2023, it amplified praise for China's Zero Covid policy using purportedly fake Facebook accounts; and in late 2023, allegedly it advised on messaging to weaken Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party.
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YouTube's AI Mistakenly Banned Chess Channel over Chess Language Misinterpretation AIID ↗
YouTube's AI-powered hate speech detection system falsely flagged chess content and banned chess creators allegedly due to its misinterpretation of strategy language such as "black," "white," and "attack" as harmful and dangerous.
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Facebook's AI Put "Primates" Label on Video Featuring Black Men AIID ↗
Facebook's AI mislabeled video featuring Black men as a video about "primates," resulting in an offensive prompt message for users who watched the video.
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Miami Police Deployed Facial Recognition to Arrest George Floyd Protestor Allegedly without Cause AIID ↗
Miami Police's arrest report for a George Floyd protestor did not disclose use of facial recognition, which allegedly did not meet the legal threshold for probable cause for arrest.
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AI translation is jeopardizing Afghan asylum claims AIID ↗
A Pashto-speaking refugee's asylum claim was denied by a US agency for a discrepancy between oral and written recount of an event allegedly due to an error of their automated translation tool which swapped pronouns of her written statement from "I" to "we".
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Uber Allegedly Violated GDPR by Failing to Provide Sufficient Notice on Automated Profiling for Drivers AIID ↗
Uber was alleged in a lawsuit to have provided incomplete notice about automated decision-making and profiling for drivers such as information about their driving behavior, and use of phone.
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Image Upscaling Algorithm PULSE Allegedly Produced Facial Images with Caucasian Features More Often AIID ↗
Image upscaling tool PULSE powered by NVIDIA's StyleGAN reportedly generated faces with Caucasian features more often, although AI academics, engineers, and researchers were not in agreement about where the source of bias was.
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iGPT, SimCLR Learned Biased Associations from Internet Training Data AIID ↗
Unsupervised image generation models trained using Internet images such as iGPT and SimCLR were shown to have embedded racial, gender, and intersectional biases, resulting in stereotypical depictions.
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Starship Delivery Robot Scuffed Bumper of a Resident’s Car in Texas, Allegedly Refusing to Release Footage of the Accident AIID ↗
A Starship food delivery robot crashed into the front bumper of a vehicle waiting at a stoplight intersection in Frisco, Texas, the video of which the company reportedly refused to release.
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Fake Accounts Using GAN Faces Deployed by Propaganda Campaign on Social Platforms AIID ↗
A pro-China propaganda campaign deployed fake accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube using GAN-synthesized faces to share and post comments on its content to gain wider circulation.
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Facebook’s Moderation Algorithm Banned Users for Historical Evidence of Slavery AIID ↗
Facebook’s automated content moderation was acknowledged by a company spokesperson to have erroneously censored and banned Australian users from posting an article containing a 1890s photo of Aboriginal men in chains over nudity as historical evidence of slavery in Australia.
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iRobot Roomba J7 R&D Images Reportedly Appeared in Private Online Groups After Data Labeling AIID ↗
Images reportedly captured in 2020 by development versions of iRobot's Roomba J7 robot vacuum during an AI training data project were sent to Scale AI for labeling and later appeared in private Facebook, Discord, and other online groups. Reporting described some images as showing sensitive household scenes.
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Kristen Bell Deepfaked in Non-Consensual AI-Generated Pornography AIID ↗
The actor Kristen Bell discovered that her likeness was exploited by creators of deepfake pornography, who shared their non-consensual sexual depictions of her on the Internet.
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Microsoft’s Algorithm Allegedly Selected Photo of the Wrong Mixed-Race Person Featured in a News Story AIID ↗
A news story published on MSN.com featured a photo of the wrong mixed-race person that was allegedly selected by an algorithm, following Microsoft’s layoff and replacement of journalists and editorial workers at its organizations with AI systems.
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Tesla on Autopilot Crashed into Flipped Truck on Taiwan Highway AIID ↗
On a highway in Taiwan, a Tesla Sedan, reportedly operating on Autopilot mode, crashed into a large overturned truck, barely missing a pedestrian.
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University of Toronto's ProctorU Deployment Reportedly Disadvantaged BIPOC Students During Exam Check-Ins AIID ↗
University of Toronto students reported that ProctorU and other online exam-monitoring services created discriminatory and stressful check-in experiences for BIPOC students during remote exams. One U of T student said ProctorU's identity-verification process often failed to recognize her passport, forcing manual checks and consuming exam check-in time. ProctorU said human proctors made final identity and integrity decisions.
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Unreliable ShotSpotter Audio Previously Used to Convict Chicago Man in Murder Case AIID ↗
ShotSpotter audios were previously admitted to convict an innocent Black man in a murder case in Chicago, resulted in his nearly-one-year-long arrest before being dismissed by prosecutors as insufficient evidence.
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YouTube Auto-Moderation Reportedly Banned Women of Sex Tech Conference AIID ↗
YouTube’s automated content moderation tool erroneously removed The Women of Sex Tech conference's live-streamed event and banned the conference from the platform, despite not violating the platform’s sexual content policies.
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Indian Political App Tek Fog Allegedly Hijacked Trends and Manipulated Public Opinion on Other Social Media Platforms AIID ↗
The Indian political social media app Tek Fog allegedly allowed operatives affiliated with the ruling political party to hijack social media trends and manipulate public opinion on other apps such as Twitter and WhatsApp, which opposition parties denounced as a national security threat.
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Walmart's Bagging-Detection False Positives Exposed Workers to Health Risk AIID ↗
Walmart's theft-deterring bagging-detection system allegedly exposed workers to health risks during the coronavirus pandemic when its false positives prompted workers to unnecessarily step in to resolve the issue.
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Climate Action Group Posted Deepfake of Belgian Prime Minister Urging Climate Crisis Action AIID ↗
A deepfake video showing the Belgium’s prime minister speaking of an urgent need to tackle the climate crises was released by a climate action group.
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Facebook Content Moderators Demand Better Working Conditions Due to Allegedly Inadequate AI Content Moderation AIID ↗
Content moderators and employees at Facebook demand better working conditions, as automated content moderation system allegedly failed to achieve sufficient performance and exposed human reviewers to psychologically hazardous content such as graphic violence and child abuse.
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Autonomous Kargu-2 Drone Allegedly Remotely Used to Hunt down Libyan Soldiers AIID ↗
In Libya, a Turkish-made Kargu-2 aerial drone powered by a computer vision model was allegedly used remotely by forces backed by the Tripoli-based government to track down and attack enemies as they were running from rocket attacks.
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University of Illinois' Proctorio Remote-Proctoring Deployment Reportedly Raised Student Rights Concerns AIID ↗
Beginning in March 2020, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign deployed Proctorio for remote exam proctoring after the COVID-19 shift to online instruction. Students and faculty raised concerns that the software surveilled students' homes and devices, created accessibility barriers, increased testing anxiety, and could flag students when facial-detection tools failed to detect their faces, with particular concern for students of color. UIUC later declined to renew its emergency contract.
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Personal voice assistants struggle with black voices, new study shows AIID ↗
A study found that voice recognition tools from Apple, Amazon, Google, IBM, and Microsoft disproportionately made errors when transcribing black speakers.
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Bug in Facebook’s Anti-Spam Filter Allegedly Blocked Legitimate Posts about COVID-19 AIID ↗
Facebook was reported by users for blocking posts of legitimate news about the coronavirus pandemic, allegedly due to a bug in an anti-spam system.
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Permanent Removal of Social Media Content via Automated Tools Allegedly Prevented Investigative Efforts AIID ↗
Automated permanent removal of violating social media content, such as terrorism, violent extremism, and hate speech, without archival has allegedly hindered the potential use of this content for investigating serious crimes and hampered efforts in criminal accountability.
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Canadian Universities' AI Proctoring Tools Reportedly Collected Student Biometric Data Without Adequate Consent AIID ↗
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Canadian universities reportedly used AI-enabled remote-proctoring tools for online exams. A University of Ottawa project supported by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada found that tools such as Respondus Monitor, ProctorU, ProctorTrack, Proctorio, ProctorExam, and Examity collected student personal or biometric data under conditions not conducive to meaningful consent.
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TikTok's "Suggested Accounts" Algorithm Allegedly Reinforced Racial Bias through Feedback Loops AIID ↗
TikTok's "Suggested Accounts" recommendations allegedly reinforced racial bias despite not basing recommendations on race or creators' profile photo.
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EasyMile Self-Driving Shuttle Unexpectedly Stopped Mid-Route, Injuring a Passenger AIID ↗
A self-driving shuttle deployed by Smart Columbus in Linden neighborhood unexpectedly stopped on the street, which caused a woman to fall onto the floor from her seat.
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Algorithm Used by the Malaysian Judiciary Reportedly Recommended Unusually High Sentencing to a Drug Possession Case AIID ↗
The AI system used by the Malaysian judiciary which explicitly considered age, employment, and socio-economic data provided sentencing to a drug possession case that was alleged by lawyer to be disproportionately high for the crime committed.
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BJP Used Deepfake Videos of Manoj Tiwari to Target Haryanvi Voters in 2020 Delhi Election AIID ↗
In February 2020, India's BJP used purported deepfake videos of party leader Manoj Tiwari to influence voters in the Delhi legislative election. The videos reportedly showed Tiwari delivering scripted campaign messages in Haryanvi and English, which are languages he did not speak, by altering his lip movements and voice. Distributed via thousands of WhatsApp groups, the deepfakes reportedly reached millions of voters without disclosure.
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Networking Platform Giggle Employs AI to Determine Users’ Gender, Allegedly Excluding Transgender Women AIID ↗
A social networking platform, Giggle, allegedly collected, shared to third-parties, and used sensitive information and biometric data to verify whether a person is a woman via facial recognition, which critics claimed to be discriminatory against women of color and harmful towards trans women.
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Noelle Martin Deepfaked Without Consent in AI-Generated Pornography AIID ↗
In 2017, Noelle Martin discovered explicit deepfake videos online that used AI technology to superimpose her face onto pornographic scenes. This incident was a continuation of the abuse she had experienced since at least 2012, when she first found doctored still images of herself in similar contexts. Despite the initial lack of legal protections, her advocacy efforts were instrumental in making image-based abuse a criminal offense in Australia.
Informational only, not legal advice. Verify every claim against the linked official sources and consult qualified counsel before acting.