Glovo Driver in Italy Fired via Automated Email after Being Killed in Accident

Laws on record for this risk area

Policy angle: Classified under Human-Computer Interaction (Overreliance and unsafe use) in the MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy; 5 instruments on record cover this risk area.

• India DPDP Act India · Partially applicable · binding
• Law on Artificial Intelligence (2025) Kazakhstan · Adopted · binding
• Law No. 132/2025 on artificial intelligence Italy · In force · binding
• EU AI Act European Union · Partially applicable · binding
• Texas Responsible AI Governance Act (TRAIGA) Texas (United States) · In force · binding

Matched from the record's risk category and country to the instruments in effect recorded here: a law listed covers the area, which is not a finding that it applies to this incident. A reviewer can correct the match in the repository (data/external/incident_overrides.yaml).

News reports (2)

Titles link to the original publisher; report text is not reproduced here.

1. 4 Oct 2022
   Sebastian Galassi, lo studente-rider morto a Firenze durante una consegna e licenziato il giorno dopo con un'email (automatica)

   ilfattoquotidiano.it · Chiara Ciucci
2. 13 Oct 2022
   A Glovo driver died in an accident while on duty and received an email firing him for 'non-compliance' with the terms of his role

   businessinsider.com · Lucas Gª Alcalde, Nathan Rennolds

Who was involved

Alleged deployer

Glovo

Alleged developer

Glovo

Alleged harmed party

Sebastian Galassi's family Sebastian Galassi

AI systems implicated

Algorithmic management systems

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

—

Sectors

—

Countries

—

Risk entries describing this failure mode

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

• 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)

• Addiction

  "Addiction - Emotional or material dependence on technology or a technology system."

  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)

• 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)

• 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)

• Alteration of social relationships may induce psychological distress

  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)

• 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)

Related incidents

Linked by editors or by text similarity in the source dataset.

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• 11 Apr 2018Argentinian City Government Deployed Teenage-Pregnancy Predictive Algorithm Using Invasive Demographic Data

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