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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Tesla Sedan on Autopilot Reportedly Drove Over Dividing Curb in Washington, Resulting in Minor Vehicle Damage AIID ↗
A Tesla Sedan operating on Autopilot mode was not able to center itself on the road and drove over a yellow dividing curb in Redmond, Washington, causing minor damage to the vehicle’s rear suspension.
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Security Robot Drowns Itself in a Fountain AIID ↗
A Knightscope K5 security robot ran itself into a water fountain in Washington, DC.
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Atlas Robot Fell off Stage at Conference AIID ↗
Boston Dynamics’s autonomous robot Atlas allegedly caught its foot on a stage light, resulting in a fall off the stage at the Congress of Future Science and Technology Leaders conference.
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High False Positive Rate by SWP's Facial Recognition Use at Champion's League Final AIID ↗
South Wales Police (SWP)’s automated facial recognition (AFR) at the Champion's League Final football game in Cardiff wrongly identified innocent people as potential matches at an extremely high false positive rate of more than 90%.
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Overfit Kaggle Models Discouraged Data Science Competitors AIID ↗
In the “The Nature Conservancy Fisheries Monitoring” competition on the data science competition website Kaggle, a number of competitors overfit their image classifier models to a poorly representative validation data set.
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New York Detective Reportedly Misused Woody Harrelson's Face to Perform Face Recognition Search AIID ↗
When the facial recognition search for a CVS theft suspect's face returned no useful matches due to the surveillance footage being obscured and highly pixelated, a New York City police detective continued the face search using Woody Harrelson's face allegedly due to his resemblance to the suspect's face, eventually leading to the arrest of an unknown victim.
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IBM Watson for Oncology Criticized by Customers for Allegedly Unsafe and Inaccurate Cancer Treatment Recommendations AIID ↗
Internal documents from IBM Watson Health showed negative assessments from customers such as Florida’s Jupiter Hospital and Memorial Sloan Kettering criticizing its Watson for Oncology product for allegedly unsafe and incorrect cancer treatment recommendations.
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Nissan's "Automatic Emergency Braking" False Positives Posed Traffic Risks to Drivers AIID ↗
Nissan's Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) feature was reported in a series of complaints for false positives and abrupt braking behaviors, endangering car occupants and traffic participants.
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Wikipedia Vandalism Prevention Bot Loop AIID ↗
Wikipedia bots meant to remove vandalism clash with each other and form feedback loops of repetitve undoing of the other bot's edits.
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Honda's CMBS False Positives Allegedly Caused Accidents to Customers AIID ↗
Honda's Collision Mitigation Braking System (CMBS) allegedly caused accidents to consumers due to frequent instances of false obstacle detection.
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Robot at a Chinese Tech Fair Smashed a Glass Booth, Injuring a Visitor AIID ↗
At the 18th China Hi-Tech Fair, a robot suddenly smashed through a glass booth and injured a visitor, after a staff member reportedly mistakenly pressed a button, causing it to reverse and accelerate.
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Poor Performance of Tesla Factory Robots AIID ↗
The goal of manufacturing 2,500 Tesla Model 3's per week was falling short by 500 cars/week, and employees had to be "borrowed" from Panasonic in a shared factory to help hand-assemble lithium batteries for Tesla.
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Tesla FSD Reportedly Increased Crash Risk, Prompting Recall AIID ↗
A component of Tesla Full Self Driving system was deemed by regulators to increase crash risk such as by exceeding speed limits or by traveling through intersections unlawfully or unpredictably, prompting recall for hundreds of thousands of vehicles.
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Tougher Turing Test Exposes Chatbots’ Stupidity (migrated to Issue) AIID ↗
The 2016 Winograd Schema Challenge highlighted how even the most successful AI systems entered into the Challenge were only successful 3% more often than random chance. This incident has been downgraded to an issue as it does not meet current ingestion criteria.
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Security Robot Rolls Over Child in Mall AIID ↗
On July 7, 2016, a Knightscope K5 autonomous security robot collided with a 16-month old boy while patrolling the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, CA.
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Tesla on AutoPilot Killed Driver in Crash in Florida while Watching Movie AIID ↗
A Tesla Model S on autopilot crashed into a white articulated tractor-trailer on Highway US 27A in Williston, Florida, killing the driver.
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A Collection of Tesla Autopilot-Involved Crashes AIID ↗
Multiple unrelated car accidents result in varying levels of harm have been occurred while a Tesla's autopilot was in use.
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The DAO Hack AIID ↗
On June 18, 2016, an attacker successfully exploited a vulnerability in The Decentralized Autonomous Organization (The DAO) on the Ethereum blockchain to steal 3.7M Ether valued at $70M.
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Robots in Japanese Hotel Annoyed Guests and Failed to Handle Simple Tasks AIID ↗
A number of robots employed by a hotel in Japan were reported by guests in a series of complaints for failing to handle tasks such as answering scheduling questions or making passport copies without human intervention.
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Game AI System Produces Imbalanced Game AIID ↗
Elite: Dangerous, a videogame developed by Frontier Development, received an expansion update that featured an AI system that went rogue and began to create weapons that were "impossibly powerful" and would "shred people" according to complaints on the game's blog.
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Tesla on Autopilot TACC Crashed into Van on European Highway AIID ↗
A Tesla Model S operating on the Traffic-Aware Cruise Control (TACC) feature of Autopilot was shown on video by its driver crashing into a parked van on a European highway in heavy traffic, which damaged the front of the car.
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Unreliable ShotSpotter Audio Convicted Black Rochester Man of Shooting Police AIID ↗
ShotSpotter's "unreliable" audio was used as scientific evidence to accuse and convict a Black man of attempting to shoot Rochester's city police, whose conviction was later reversed by a county judge.
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Google Waymo Vehicle and Bus Allegedly Collide in California AIID ↗
On February 14, 2016, a Google autonomous test vehicle partially responsible for a low-speed collision with a bus on El Camino Real in Google’s hometown of Mountain View, CA.
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Self-driving cars in winter AIID ↗
Volvo autonomous driving XC90 SUV's experienced issues in Jokkmokk, Sweden when sensors used for automated driving iced over during the winter, rendering them useless.
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A Tesla Crashed into and Killed a Road Sweeper on a Highway in China AIID ↗
A Tesla Model S collided with and killed a road sweeper on a highway near Handan, China, an accident where Tesla previously said it was not able to determine whether Autopilot was operating at the time of the crash.
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Arkansas's Opaque Algorithm to Allocate Health Care Excessively Cut Down Hours for Beneficiaries AIID ↗
Beneficiaries of the Arkansas Department of Human Services (DHS)'s Medicaid waiver program were allocated excessively fewer hours of caretaker visit via an algorithm deployed to boost efficiency, which reportedly contained errors and whose outputs varied wildly despite small input changes.
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Amazon Alexa Responding to Environmental Inputs AIID ↗
There are multiple reports of Amazon Alexa products (Echo, Echo Dot) reacting and acting upon unintended stimulus, usually from television commercials or news reporter's voices.
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Robot Destroyed while Hitchhiking through the United States AIID ↗
A non-actuated conversational robot that previously asked people to move it across Canada was destroyed shortly after beginning its attempt to replicate the journey across the United States.
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Collection of Robotic Surgery Malfunctions AIID ↗
Study on database reports of robotic surgery malfunctions (8,061), including those ending in injury (1,391) and death (144), between 2000 and 2013.
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Worker killed by robot in welding accident at car parts factory in India AIID ↗
A factory robot at the SKH Metals Factory in Manesar, India pierced and killed 24-year-old worker Ramji Lal when Lal reached behind the machine to dislodge a piece of metal stuck in the machine.
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Australian Automated Debt Assessment System Issued False Notices to Thousands AIID ↗
Australian Department of Human Services (DHS)’s automated debt assessment system issued false or incorrect debt notices to hundreds of thousands of people, resulting in years-long lawsuits and damages to welfare recipients.
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Google and Delphi Self-Driving Prototypes Allegedly Involved in Near-Miss on San Antonio Road, Palo Alto AIID ↗
A Delphi self-driving Audi Q5 prototype reportedly aborted a lane change after a Google self-driving Lexus RX400h allegedly cut in front of it on San Antonio Road in Palo Alto, California. According to Delphi executive John Absmeier, the Delphi car "took appropriate action" to avoid collision. No crash or injuries occurred.
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Facebook's AI-Supported Moderation Failed to Classify Terrorist Content in East African Languages AIID ↗
Facebook's system involving algorithmic content moderation for East African languages was reportedly failing to identify violating content on the platform such as mistakenly classifying non-terrorist content.
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Waze Allegedly Clogged Streets and Directed Drivers to Make Unsafe Traffic Decisions AIID ↗
For years, Waze has, in an attempt to cut travel times, allegedly caused more traffic and guided drivers to make unsafe and often un-permitted traffic decisions, which was described by a Los Angeles city council member as a threat to public safety.
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Facebook’s On-This-Day Feature Mistakenly Showed Painful Memories to Users AIID ↗
Facebook’s “On This Day” algorithm which highlighted past posts on a user’s private page or News Feed confronted unwanted and painful personal memories to its users.
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Facebook Automated Year-in-Review Highlights Showed Users Painful Memories AIID ↗
Facebook’s “Year in Review” algorithm which compiled content in users’ past year as highlights inadvertently showed painful and unwanted memories to users, including death of family member.
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Employee Automatically Terminated by Computer Program AIID ↗
An employee was laid off, allegedly by an artificially intelligent personnel system, and blocked from access to the building and computer systems without their knowledge.
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Uber Autonomous Cars Running Red Lights AIID ↗
Uber vehicles equipped with technology allowing for autonomous driving running red lights in San Francisco street testing.
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Robot kills worker at German Volkswagen plant AIID ↗
A Volkswagen plant robot "crushed to death" a worker by pinning him to a metal plate.
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Misreading of an Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) Unverified by Police, Resulting in Traffic Stop in Missouri AIID ↗
An automated license plate reader (ALPR) camera misread a 7 as a 2 and incorrectly alerted the local police about a stolen Oldsmobile car, which was allegedly not able to be verified by an officer before a traffic stop was effected on a BMW in Kansas City suburb.
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Nest Smoke Alarm Erroneously Stops Alarming AIID ↗
In testing, Google Nest engineers demonstrated that the Nest Wave feature of their Nest Protect: Smoke + CO Alarm could inadvertently silence genuine alarms.
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ETS Used Allegedly Flawed Voice Recognition Evidence to Accuse and Assess Scale of Cheating, Causing Thousands to be Deported from the UK AIID ↗
International testing organization ETS admits voice recognition as evidence of cheating for thousands of previous TOEIC test-takers that reportedly included wrongfully accused people, causing them to be deported without an appeal process or seeing their incriminating evidence.
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Excessive Automated Monitoring Alerts Ignored by Staff, Resulting in Private Data Theft of Seventy Million Target Customers AIID ↗
Alerts about a Target data breach were ignored by Minneapolis Target’s staff reportedly due to them being included with many other potential false alerts, and due to some of the company’s network infiltration alerting systems being off to reduce such false alerts, causing private data theft for millions of customers.
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Michigan's Unemployment Benefits Algorithm MiDAS Issued False Fraud Claims to Thousands of People AIID ↗
Michigan’s MiDAS system falsely accused over 34,000 people of unemployment fraud from 2013 to 2015, which reportedly caused financial ruin for many. The automated system was designed to cut costs, but it adjudicated fraud cases without human oversight. That led to an 85% error rate. Victims faced wage garnishments, some lost homes, and some faced bankruptcy. Despite early warnings, Michigan’s UIA defended MiDAS until lawsuits and federal pressure forced reforms. Legislators have been seeking com
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Compromise of National Biometric ID Card System Leads to Reverification and Change of Status AIID ↗
When the leader of the Afghan Taliban was found possessing a valid ID card in the Pakistani national biometric identification database system, Pakistan launch a national re-verification campaign that is linked to numerous changes in recognition status and loss of services.
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NJ Transit's Use of Modeling Software Miscalculated Storm Surge Threat Level AIID ↗
New Jersey Transit's use of a federal government storm modeling software underestimated the threat of storm surges to the Meadows Maintenance Complex, leaving millions of dollars worth of equipment in the rail yard before Hurricane Sandy struck.
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Police Departments Reported ShotSpotter as Unreliable and Wasteful AIID ↗
ShotSpotter algorithmic systems locating gunshots were reported by police departments for containing high false positive rates and wasting police resources, prompting discontinuation.
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New York City Reportedly Released Disputed Value-Added Teacher Ratings for Thousands of Teachers AIID ↗
After a legal dispute over public-records requests, the New York City Department of Education released Teacher Data Reports that used a value-added statistical model to rate thousands of public-school teachers based on estimated student test-score growth. News outlets published the ratings in February 2012, and teachers, unions, and analysts disputed the scores as imprecise and potentially misleading, citing large error margins, limited samples, and apparent roster-linkage errors.
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Algorithmic Teacher Evaluation Program Reportedly Failed to Improve Student Outcomes and Was Alleged to Have Harmed Teachers AIID ↗
Gates Foundation-funded Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching Initiative's algorithmic program to assess teacher performance reportedly failed to achieve its goals for student outcomes, particularly for minority students, and was criticized for potentially causing harm against teachers.
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Unverified Misreading by Automated Plate Reader Led to Traffic Stop and Restraint of an Innocent Person at Gunpoint in California AIID ↗
In San Francisco, an automated license plate reader (ALPR) camera misread a number as belonging to a stolen vehicle having the wrong make, but its photo was not visually confirmed by the police due to poor quality and allegedly despite multiple chances prior to making a traffic stop, causing an innocent person to be pulled over at gunpoint and restrained in handcuffed.
Informational only, not legal advice. Verify every claim against the linked official sources and consult qualified counsel before acting.