Australian AI Incident Database
Structured, searchable database of AU AI failures, algorithmic errors, and regulatory actions. Each incident cross-links to the architectural failure patterns on aipatterns.com.au.
29
Total incidents
16
Critical
5
Sectors affected
Multi-billion
Financial impact
Showing 5 of 29 incidents
Uber ATG Autonomous Vehicle Killed Pedestrian in First Autonomous Fatality
Uber Advanced Technologies Group
An Uber self-driving test vehicle struck and killed Elaine Herzberg in Tempe, Arizona. The system detected the pedestrian but misclassified her, and the automatic emergency braking was disabled during autonomous operation.
IBM Watson for Oncology Recommended Unsafe Cancer Treatments
IBM Watson Health
Internal IBM documents leaked to STAT News revealed that IBM Watson for Oncology had recommended treatments that oncologists described as 'unsafe and incorrect'. The system generated advice based on hypothetical training cases rather than real patient data.
Robodebt: Automated Income-Averaging Issued 381,000 Unlawful Debt Notices
Services Australia (Department of Human Services)
The Australian Government's automated welfare debt recovery scheme used income-averaging to calculate alleged debts owed by welfare recipients, comparing Centrelink payment data against ATO tax records without human verification. The algorithm generated 381,000 debt notices over three years.
COMPAS Recidivism Algorithm Showed Racial Bias in US Courts
Northpointe (Equivant)
ProPublica's investigation found that Black defendants were nearly twice as likely to be falsely flagged as future criminals compared to white defendants. The tool was being used by judges to inform bail, sentencing, and parole decisions.
Meta Manipulated 700,000 Users' News Feeds Without Consent in Emotion Study
Meta (Facebook)
Facebook conducted a large-scale psychological experiment on approximately 689,000 users, systematically altering their News Feed algorithms to test whether emotions were contagious online. The study was published without users ever being informed they were research subjects.