AI incident ·
Spokane, Washington, Police Reportedly Circulated Purported AI-Generated Image as Authentic Photo of Injured Dog
In brief
An AI system built by Synthetic Media Generation Technology Developers and Synthetic Image Generation Technology Developers and deployed by Spokane Police Department, Law Enforcement and 1 other allegedly harmed Epistemic Integrity, General Public and 7 others.
- Risk domain
- Not classified
- Occurred
- Coverage
- 1 report
What happened
Detectives in Spokane, Washington, reportedly created a purported AI-generated image as a joke depicting a real undercover officer holding an injured dachshund. A supervisor reportedly mistook it for an authentic photograph and the image was released to news media after correcting an earlier claim that the dog had died. The Spokesman-Review published a cropped version before the department disclosed that the scene was fabricated and began reviewing its verification procedures.
Laws that address this harm
No recorded instrument yet addresses this use case where it happened. See the open queue.
Matched from the record's risk domain and country to the instruments recorded here. A reviewer can correct the match in the repository (data/external/incident_overrides.yaml).
Who was involved
- Alleged developer
- Synthetic Media Generation Technology Developers, Synthetic Image Generation Technology Developers
- Alleged harmed party
- Epistemic Integrity, General Public, General Public Of Spokane Washington, Journalistic Integrity, The Spokesman Review, Undercover Law Enforcement Officers, Law Enforcement, Privacy, News Organizations
Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)
- Risk domain
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- Risk subdomain
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- Causal entity
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- Intent
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- Timing
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Source record: incident #1597 on the AI Incident Database · all 1 report