Quality-of-Service Harms

Classification

Domain

1. Discrimination & Toxicity

Subdomain

1.3 Unequal performance across groups

Causal entity

AI

Intent

Unintentional

Timing

Post-deployment

Subdomain definition: Accuracy and effectiveness of AI decisions and actions is dependent on group membership, where decisions in AI system design and biased training data lead to unequal outcomes, reduced benefits, increased effort, and alienation of users.

Real-world incidents in this subdomain

• 27 Feb 2026Washington State DOL's AI Phone System Reportedly Failed to Provide Spanish-Language Service to Callers Requesting Spanish
• 5 Dec 2025UK Facial Recognition System Reportedly Exhibits Higher False Positive Rates for Black and Asian Subjects
• 11 Oct 2024Infinite Campus AI-Driven Student Risk Model Leads to Cuts in Support for Nevada's Low-Income Schools
• 6 Oct 2024Police Use of Facial Recognition Software Causes Wrongful Arrests Without Defendant Knowledge
• 23 Jun 2024Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Algorithm Wrongly Flags 200,000 for Housing Benefit Fraud
• 25 May 2024Facewatch Reported to Have Wrongfully Flagged Home Bargains Customer as Shoplifter

How other frameworks describe this risk

• Bias and discrimination (value embedding)

  Regulating under Uncertainty: Governance Options for Generative AI (G'sell2024)

• Impact on affected communities

  AI Risk Atlas (IBM2025)

• Unfair capability distribution

  A Closer Look at the Existing Risks of Generative AI: Mapping the Who, What, and How of Real-World Incidents (Li2025)

• Disparate Performance

  Trustworthy LLMs: A Survey and Guideline for Evaluating Large Language Models’ Alignment (Liu2024)

• Fairness

  Trustworthy LLMs: A Survey and Guideline for Evaluating Large Language Models’ Alignment (Liu2024)

• Ideological Homogenization from Value Embedding

  Governing General Purpose AI: A Comprehensive Map of Unreliability, Misuse and Systemic Risks (Maham2023 )

• Fairness

  A Survey of Artificial Intelligence Challenges: Analyzing the Definitions, Relationships, and Evolutions (Saghiri2022)

• Disparate Performance

  Evaluating the Social Impact of Generative AI Systems in Systems and Society (Solaiman2023)

Other entries from Shelby2023

• Representational Harms Risk Category · 1.1
• Stereotyping social groups Risk Sub-Category · 1.1
• Demeaning social groups Risk Sub-Category · 1.1
• Erasing social groups Risk Sub-Category · 1.3
• Alienating social groups Risk Sub-Category · 1.1
• Denying people the opportunity to self-identify Risk Sub-Category · 1.1
• Reifying essentialist categories Risk Sub-Category · 1.1
• Allocative Harms Risk Category · 1.1
• Opportunity loss Risk Sub-Category · 1.1
• Economic loss Risk Sub-Category · 1.1
• Alienation Risk Sub-Category · 1.3
• Increased labor Risk Sub-Category · 1.3