Description: Facebook's AI mislabeled video featuring Black men as a video about "primates," resulting in an offensive prompt message for users who watched the video.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Facebook developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed Black people and Facebook users.
Incident Stats
Incident ID
113
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2020-06-27
Editors
Sean McGregor, Khoa Lam
Applied Taxonomies
CSETv1 Taxonomy Classifications
Taxonomy DetailsIncident Number
The number of the incident in the AI Incident Database.
113
Special Interest Intangible Harm
An assessment of whether a special interest intangible harm occurred. This assessment does not consider the context of the intangible harm, if an AI was involved, or if there is characterizable class or subgroup of harmed entities. It is also not assessing if an intangible harm occurred. It is only asking if a special interest intangible harm occurred.
yes
Date of Incident Year
The year in which the incident occurred. If there are multiple harms or occurrences of the incident, list the earliest. If a precise date is unavailable, but the available sources provide a basis for estimating the year, estimate. Otherwise, leave blank.
Enter in the format of YYYY
2021
Date of Incident Month
The month in which the incident occurred. If there are multiple harms or occurrences of the incident, list the earliest. If a precise date is unavailable, but the available sources provide a basis for estimating the month, estimate. Otherwise, leave blank.
Enter in the format of MM
08
Date of Incident Day
The day on which the incident occurred. If a precise date is unavailable, leave blank.
Enter in the format of DD
Estimated Date
“Yes” if the data was estimated. “No” otherwise.
Yes
CSETv1_Annotator-1 Taxonomy Classifications
Taxonomy DetailsIncident Number
The number of the incident in the AI Incident Database.
113
Special Interest Intangible Harm
An assessment of whether a special interest intangible harm occurred. This assessment does not consider the context of the intangible harm, if an AI was involved, or if there is characterizable class or subgroup of harmed entities. It is also not assessing if an intangible harm occurred. It is only asking if a special interest intangible harm occurred.
yes
Date of Incident Year
The year in which the incident occurred. If there are multiple harms or occurrences of the incident, list the earliest. If a precise date is unavailable, but the available sources provide a basis for estimating the year, estimate. Otherwise, leave blank.
Enter in the format of YYYY
2021
Date of Incident Month
The month in which the incident occurred. If there are multiple harms or occurrences of the incident, list the earliest. If a precise date is unavailable, but the available sources provide a basis for estimating the month, estimate. Otherwise, leave blank.
Enter in the format of MM
09
Date of Incident Day
The day on which the incident occurred. If a precise date is unavailable, leave blank.
Enter in the format of DD
Estimated Date
“Yes” if the data was estimated. “No” otherwise.
No
CSETv1_Annotator-3 Taxonomy Classifications
Taxonomy DetailsIncident Number
The number of the incident in the AI Incident Database.
113
Special Interest Intangible Harm
An assessment of whether a special interest intangible harm occurred. This assessment does not consider the context of the intangible harm, if an AI was involved, or if there is characterizable class or subgroup of harmed entities. It is also not assessing if an intangible harm occurred. It is only asking if a special interest intangible harm occurred.
yes
Date of Incident Year
The year in which the incident occurred. If there are multiple harms or occurrences of the incident, list the earliest. If a precise date is unavailable, but the available sources provide a basis for estimating the year, estimate. Otherwise, leave blank.
Enter in the format of YYYY
2021
Date of Incident Month
The month in which the incident occurred. If there are multiple harms or occurrences of the incident, list the earliest. If a precise date is unavailable, but the available sources provide a basis for estimating the month, estimate. Otherwise, leave blank.
Enter in the format of MM
08
Estimated Date
“Yes” if the data was estimated. “No” otherwise.
Yes
Multiple AI Interaction
“Yes” if two or more independently operating AI systems were involved. “No” otherwise.
no
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
nytimes.com · 2021
- View the original report at its source
- View the report at the Internet Archive
Facebook users who recently watched a video from a British tabloid featuring Black men saw an automated prompt from the social network that asked if they would like to “keep seeing videos about Primates,” causing the company to investigate …
Variants
A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.
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