The record

Where automated decisions went wrong

Incidents gathered from public reporting around the world. Each one links to the articles it came from. None of it is a finding that anyone broke the law.

Reports people file about their own experience are not shown here and never will be without their agreement. Tell us what happened to you.

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98 incidents closest to “AI Mode” · matched on meaning · public reporting

WF-N3FWDJ4 Mar 2026

国内ベンチャー企業A社、AIなりすまし面談で実在エンジニアになりすまされる

A domestic Japanese logistics SaaS venture, referred to as Company A, conducted an online casual interview for an engineer role on 4 March 2026. An applicant used AI-generated video to impersonate a real engineer, Yoshii Kenbun, whose CV details had been submitted without his knowledge. The interviewer noticed discrepancies in language ability and unnatural video, and the company confirmed with Yoshii that he had not applied or attended. Company A and Yoshii publicised the incident on X the next day.

3 source articles · read the reporting →

WF-PS4WFM18 Mar 2023

DOGE's Flawed AI Tool Threatens Veterans Affairs Services

The Department of Government Efficiency developed an AI tool to identify unnecessary VA contracts, but it used outdated models and lacked context, leading to misclassification. At least 24 contracts were canceled, affecting cancer research and nurse care tools. The VA acknowledged the tool's role but stated all contracts undergo human review. Experts criticized the use of AI for such complex decisions.

Company involved
Department of Veterans Affairs
AI system involved
Muncher

2 source articles · read the reporting →

UK government using AI for benefits and immigration decisions

The UK government is reportedly using artificial intelligence to make decisions on welfare benefits and immigration applications. The system automates decisions previously made by human caseworkers. Concerns have been raised about the fairness and transparency of such automated decisions.

10 source articles · read the reporting →

WF-U86Q3B2 Jun 2021

McDonald's tests AI drive-thru ordering in Chicago

McDonald's is testing automated voice-ordering technology at ten drive-thru locations in Chicago. The system, developed by Apprente, uses artificial intelligence to take customer orders with about 85% accuracy, handling 80% of orders without human intervention. The company's CEO stated that wider implementation faces challenges such as menu and dialect variations. No incidents of harm were reported.

Company involved
McDonald's

3 source articles · read the reporting →

WF-GLNSEM1 Apr 2018

MIT Media Lab creates 'Norman', a psychopath AI trained on biased data

MIT Media Lab developed Norman, an AI image captioning system trained on graphic content from Reddit. The project demonstrated how biased training data can lead to disturbing outputs. Norman was compared to a standard AI on Rorschach inkblot tests, showing the influence of data bias. The project was active from April to June 2018.

Company involved
MIT Media Lab
AI system involved
Norman

10 source articles · read the reporting →

WF-UH9UNN17 Oct 2024

Ex-Google techie's conference photo altered by AI to add bra

Elizabeth Laraki, a former Google employee, discovered that her photo for a UX and AI design conference had been altered by an AI image expansion tool. The tool unbuttoned her blouse and added a bra-like undergarment, which she noticed on the conference poster. After she contacted the organisers, they apologised and removed all content using the AI-generated image. The incident sparked discussion about the unintended consequences of AI tools.

5 source articles · read the reporting →

WF-V3PZUP26 Mar 2024

ISIS uses AI to create fake news broadcasts of attacks

ISIS has reportedly begun using artificial intelligence to generate propaganda videos styled as news reports about its terrorist attacks. Following an attack in Moscow, a short AI-generated video featuring a news anchor circulated on a private platform, part of a new program called 'News Harvest'. The program has since posted near-weekly dispatches covering operations globally, including in Iraq and Syria.

Company involved
ISIS
AI system involved
News Harvest

4 source articles · read the reporting →

WF-G4XV5B23 Jul 2019

MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab's AI Portrait Ars produces whitewashed portraits of people of colour

AI Portrait Ars, developed by researchers at the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, is reported to have generated Renaissance-style portraits that lightened the skin and altered the facial features of people of colour. The tool, trained on tens of thousands of paintings from the Western artistic tradition, was criticised for reproducing that bias in its data set. The creators acknowledged the bias but did not respond to a request for comment.

Company involved
MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab
AI system involved
AI Portrait Ars

10 source articles · read the reporting →

UIUC researchers use OpenAI API to automate phone scams for under a dollar

Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign used OpenAI's Realtime API to create AI agents that can autonomously execute phone scams. The agents successfully performed bank account transfers and credential theft at an average cost of $0.75 per scam. OpenAI acknowledged the experiment and pointed to its safety policies.

Company involved
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
AI system involved
GPT-4o Realtime API

6 source articles · read the reporting →

CivitAI hosts AI models generating non-consensual porn of real people

A 404 Media investigation found that CivitAI, a platform for sharing AI image generation models, hosts numerous models that can produce pornographic images of real people without their consent. These models are trained on images scraped from the internet, and have been downloaded tens of thousands of times, enabling widespread creation of non-consensual sexual content. Sex workers and public figures are particularly affected, with no remediation or recourse reported.

Company involved
CivitAI

7 source articles · read the reporting →

MBN introduces AI news anchor AI Kim in South Korea

MBN, a South Korean cable channel, introduced an AI-powered news anchor based on anchor Kim Ju-ha. The AI, named AI Kim, was created through deep learning using 10 hours of video of Kim. It presents news in her voice and manner, intended to allow 24/7 broadcasting.

Company involved
MBN
AI system involved
AI Kim

10 source articles · read the reporting →

WF-TNB7Q615 Oct 2024

NSW Education Standards Authority used AI-generated image in HSC English exam without disclosure

The NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) used an AI-generated image as a stimulus in the 2024 HSC English exam without disclosing its origin. The image, created by Florian Schroeder using OpenAI's ChatGPT and Dall-E 2, was published on Medium in July 2023. Students suspected AI use due to irregularities in the image, and NESA initially declined to confirm. After the Sydney Morning Herald confirmed the image was AI-generated, NESA stated that students would be marked on their response to the question, not the image's origin.

Company involved
NSW Education Standards Authority
AI system involved
ChatGPT and Dall-E 2

6 source articles · read the reporting →

Imprompter attack extracts personal data from AI chatbots

Security researchers at UCSD and Nanyang Technological University developed a prompt-injection attack called Imprompter that covertly instructs large language models to extract personal information from user chats and send it to an attacker. The attack was tested on Mistral AI's LeChat and the Chinese chatbot ChatGLM, achieving nearly 80% success in test conversations. Mistral AI fixed the vulnerability; ChatGLM acknowledged security measures but did not directly confirm a fix.

Company involved
Mistral AI,Zhipu AI
AI system involved
LeChat,ChatGLM

7 source articles · read the reporting →

Finnish recruitment company Digital Minds used AI to analyze job applicants' messages, prompting data protection investigation

Digital Minds, a Finnish recruitment company founded by psychologists, used IBM Watson AI to analyze job applicants' social media and email messages for personality assessments. The company obtained written consent but the Finnish Data Protection Ombudsman launched an investigation, suspecting violations of data protection laws and the secrecy of correspondence. The service was used on fewer than ten applicants and has been paused pending the investigation.

Company involved
Digital Minds
AI system involved
IBM Watson

9 source articles · read the reporting →

WF-FYG1621 Jan 2020

AI drug discovery system repurposed to generate toxic molecules in demonstration

In 2020, Collaborations Pharmaceuticals demonstrated that its AI drug discovery system, MegaSyn, could be repurposed to generate toxic molecules similar to the nerve agent VX. The company ran the software overnight and produced 40,000 potentially hazardous substances. The researchers presented their findings at a conference and briefed the White House, warning that such AI systems could be misused to create chemical weapons.

Company involved
Collaborations Pharmaceuticals
AI system involved
MegaSyn

10 source articles · read the reporting →

WF-TI8TCF11 Nov 2022

CNET used AI to generate SEO articles

CNET, a technology news site, used an AI system to generate articles for search engine optimization. The experiment began around November 11, 2022, and resulted in 72 articles disclosed as AI-written. Google reportedly rewarded these pages with search traffic.

Company involved
CNET

10 source articles · read the reporting →

Amnesty International defends using AI-generated images of Colombian protests

Amnesty International used an AI image generator to create illustrations of police brutality during protests in Colombia, claiming it was to protect the identities of vulnerable protesters. Critics, including human rights experts, argued that the use of AI could discredit authentic accounts and be exploited by authoritarian governments to delegitimise real footage. Amnesty stated it consulted with partner organisations and added disclaimers to the images, but acknowledged it has no formal policy on AI-generated images.

Company involved
Amnesty International

9 source articles · read the reporting →

AI companies trained on Hollywood writers' dialogue without consent

The Atlantic investigation found that dialogue from over 53,000 movies and 85,000 TV episodes was included in the OpenSubtitles data set used by Apple, Anthropic, Meta, Nvidia, Salesforce, and Bloomberg to train AI systems. The article alleges that this use of copyrighted material was done without permission from the writers.

4 source articles · read the reporting →

Campaigners call for end to Home Office's IPIC 'robo-caseworker' AI tool

Migrants' rights campaigners have called for the UK government to stop using the IPIC (Identify & Prioritise Immigration Cases) AI system, which automatically identifies and recommends migrants for immigration decisions or enforcement action. Privacy International and the Migrants' Rights Network have raised concerns that the system could lead to racial bias and the 'rubberstamping' of algorithmic recommendations by caseworkers. The campaigners argue that people going through the immigration system may not know their information has been processed by an algorithm. The Home Office has not directly responded to the specific concerns, though Science Secretary Peter Kyle has defended the safe development of AI in public services.

Company involved
Home Office
AI system involved
IPIC (Identify & Prioritise Immigration Cases)

9 source articles · read the reporting →

WF-WPSCF49 Jun 2023

Stable Diffusion amplifies racial and gender stereotypes in generated images

An analysis by Bloomberg of over 5,000 images generated by Stability AI's Stable Diffusion found that the text-to-image model amplifies racial and gender stereotypes. The model overrepresented lighter-skinned men in high-paying jobs and darker-skinned people in low-paying jobs, and underrepresented women in positions of power. Stability AI acknowledged the inherent biases in its models and stated it is working on mitigation.

Company involved
Stability AI
AI system involved
Stable Diffusion

8 source articles · read the reporting →

Kaedim used human artists instead of AI for 3D model generation

Kaedim, an AI startup that claimed to use machine learning to convert 2D illustrations into 3D models, actually used human artists to produce the models, according to sources. The company's founder was featured in Forbes 30 Under 30 for the technology. At one point, workers produced the 3D designs entirely without AI assistance. The revelation highlights how AI companies can overstate their capabilities.

Company involved
Kaedim
AI system involved
Kaedim

10 source articles · read the reporting →

Answer.AI tests Devin and reports 14 failures in 20 tasks

Answer.AI's team tested Devin, an autonomous AI coding assistant, on 20 real-world tasks over a month. Devin succeeded in only 3 tasks, failed 14, and was inconclusive in 3. The team found Devin often produced overly complex or hallucinated solutions and could not recognize fundamental blockers. They ultimately decided to stick with tools that allow more human control.

AI system involved
Devin

5 source articles · read the reporting →

IRCC uses AI triage for Temporary Resident Visa applications

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) uses an AI system called Advanced Analytics to triage Temporary Resident Visa applications from India and China. The system categorizes applications into tiers, with Tier 1 approved automatically and others sent to human officers. Critics allege the system lacks transparency and may introduce bias, leading to visa refusals without clear rationale. The author, a Canadian immigration lawyer, is filing Federal Court cases on behalf of clients affected by refusals.

Company involved
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)
AI system involved
Advanced Analytics Triage of Overseas Temporary Resident Visa Applications

10 source articles · read the reporting →

WF-Q9F9497 Oct 2023

Israel uses AI system 'the Gospel' to select bombing targets in Gaza

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has been using an AI-based targeting system called 'the Gospel' to select bombing targets in Gaza during the war with Hamas. The system generates a high volume of target recommendations, significantly increasing the pace of airstrikes. Critics argue that the reliance on AI leads to insufficient human oversight and greater civilian harm. The IDF maintains that it follows international law and takes precautions to mitigate civilian casualties.

Company involved
Israel Defense Forces (IDF)
AI system involved
the Gospel (Habsora)

9 source articles · read the reporting →

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