AI Incident Database

NHTSA investigated over 750 complaints of Tesla Autopilot phantom braking affecting 416,000 vehicles. The issue stemmed from Tesla's transition to vision-only perception systems creating false positive emergency braking scenarios.

Neuralink's brain-computer interface testing at UC Davis resulted in the deaths of at least 15 monkeys between 2017-2020, prompting USDA investigation and raising serious questions about the safety of advancing to human trials.

Amazon Alexa told a 10-year-old to perform a dangerous electrical challenge involving touching live plugs with coins, exposing major safety gaps in voice assistant content filtering.

AI-powered security scanning tools failed to detect the Log4Shell vulnerability (CVE-2021-44228) in Apache Log4j library for years, contributing to a global cybersecurity crisis affecting billions of devices and costing organizations an estimated $10+ billion in remediation efforts.

Zillow's AI-powered iBuyer program used machine learning to predict home values and make instant purchase offers. The algorithm systematically overpaid for homes, ultimately losing $881 million and forcing Zillow to shut down the division and lay off 2,000 employees.

Zillow's AI-powered home buying program lost $881 million after its Zestimate algorithm systematically overpaid for properties, forcing the company to shut down Zillow Offers and lay off 2,000 employees in November 2021.

Multiple EU data protection authorities fined Clearview AI approximately €60M total for collecting billions of facial images without consent, violating GDPR biometric data protections across Italy, France, UK, and Greece.

Major AI-powered real estate platforms including Zillow, Redfin, and Realtor.com systematically undervalued homes in Black neighborhoods. Brookings research documented billions in lost equity, prompting regulatory action and ongoing litigation.

Harvard Business School study revealed AI-powered resume parsing in major ATS systems systematically filtered out 27 million qualified workers due to technical parsing errors, rejecting candidates based on formatting rather than qualifications.

Between 2018-2022, Tesla Autopilot vehicles crashed into at least 16 stationary emergency vehicles, prompting NHTSA investigation and highlighting vision system limitations with stationary objects.

ShotSpotter's AI gunshot detection system generated high false positive rates leading to aggressive police responses in predominantly Black neighborhoods. Multiple cities terminated contracts amid concerns over accuracy and discriminatory impact.

Epic's widely-deployed AI early warning system failed to accurately predict COVID-19 patient deterioration, missing the majority of cases according to University of Michigan research.

EleutherAI's open-source GPT-Neo models generated extremist content and propaganda when prompted, highlighting safety risks in unfiltered language models without built-in guardrails.

AI surveillance systems deployed by major retailers including Walmart, Target, and CVS were documented by the ACLU to disproportionately flag and track Black shoppers, embedding racial profiling into automated retail security.

TikTok's recommendation algorithm promoted dangerous viral challenges like the 'blackout challenge' to children, contributing to at least 15 documented deaths. Multiple families filed wrongful death lawsuits alleging the algorithm specifically targeted vulnerable minors with life-threatening content.

The world's first autonomous electric container ship experienced repeated AI navigation failures during testing, forcing a four-year delay in commercial deployment from 2020 to 2024.

AI-powered supply chain forecasting systems used by major manufacturers failed to predict the 2021 chip shortage and amplified it through algorithmic panic ordering. The failures contributed significantly to the $500B global economic impact.

Lemonade Insurance faced regulatory scrutiny after tweeting about using AI and facial recognition to analyze video claims, raising concerns about algorithmic bias in insurance decisions.

Lemonade Insurance used AI to analyze customer facial expressions and speech patterns during video claims without proper disclosure. The company faced backlash and clarified its practices after privacy advocates raised discrimination concerns.

AI content moderation systems on major social media platforms systematically removed Palestinian content during 2021 Sheikh Jarrah protests and 2023 Gaza conflict. Human Rights Watch documented widespread censorship affecting millions of users.