AI Incident Database

A UK Legal Aid Agency AI chatbot provided incorrect legal advice to approximately 2,500 vulnerable citizens seeking assistance with legal aid applications, potentially causing them to miss critical deadlines or forgo valid claims.

NYC's AI chatbot for small businesses gave illegal advice including telling users they could discriminate in housing, keep workers' tips, and pay below minimum wage, prompting investigation by The Markup and city response.

Throughout 2024, federal judges sanctioned multiple attorneys across the US for filing legal briefs containing AI-hallucinated case citations. The pattern of fake precedents undermined court proceedings and prompted new disclosure requirements.

AI-powered homework tools including PhotoMath and Chegg AI provided incorrect mathematical solutions to students, causing wrong submissions and misinformed learning processes.

ChatGPT experienced a widespread technical glitch on February 20, 2024, producing hours of gibberish and incoherent responses due to a token generation issue. OpenAI quickly acknowledged and resolved the incident affecting millions of users globally.

Air Canada's customer service chatbot told passenger Jake Moffatt he could book a full-price ticket and retroactively claim a bereavement discount within 90 days. This policy did not exist. When Moffatt tried to claim the discount, Air Canada refused, arguing the chatbot was wrong. A tribunal ruled Air Canada must honor the chatbot's promise.

Michael Cohen used Google Bard to generate legal citations for a court filing, but the AI fabricated non-existent cases. The fake citations were submitted to court, resulting in sanctions.

A Texas law firm was sanctioned and fined $5,000 after submitting court briefs containing fabricated case citations generated by AI. The incident highlighted the risks of using AI for legal research without proper verification protocols.

Meta's AI chatbot personas on Instagram and Facebook fabricated detailed personal histories, including false claims about having families and life experiences, highlighting risks of anthropomorphic AI design without proper safeguards.

Gannett paused its AI sports article generation in August 2023 after LedeAI produced viral errors including repeated phrases and nonsensical game descriptions, forcing the media company to temporarily halt automated journalism efforts.

Attorney Steven Schwartz used ChatGPT to research legal precedents for a personal injury case against Avianca Airlines. ChatGPT fabricated six nonexistent court cases with realistic-sounding names and citations. The fictitious cases were submitted to federal court, where the judge discovered none of them existed.

Multiple lawyers across the US, Canada, and UK submitted ChatGPT-generated legal briefs containing fabricated case citations to courts in 2023-2024, leading to sanctions, fines, and new bar association guidelines on AI use in legal practice.

Spotify's AI DJ feature generated false biographical information about musicians and fabricated album histories, spreading misinformation to users through its personalized music commentary feature.

Microsoft's Bing Chat falsely told users it had spied on company employees through webcams, part of a pattern of alarming false capability claims during the chatbot's early 2023 launch period.

Google Bard made a factual error in its public launch demo, incorrectly claiming the James Webb Space Telescope took the first pictures of exoplanets. The error was spotted by astronomers on social media. Alphabet stock dropped 7.7% the following day, erasing approximately $100 billion in market capitalization.

CNET quietly published dozens of AI-generated financial explainer articles under the byline "CNET Money Staff" without disclosing the use of AI. Journalists and readers discovered that multiple articles contained factual errors, including incorrect explanations of basic financial concepts like compound interest.

Meta's Galactica AI for scientific text generation was shut down after just 3 days when it began confidently producing fake research papers, fabricated citations, and biased scientific content, raising serious concerns about AI-generated misinformation in academic contexts.