AI Failure Cases
Each case is examined through the same forensic framework: what happened, what information existed, which governance layer failed, what evidence survives - and what remains permanently unknowable.
The goal is not to assign blame. It is to identify the evidentiary properties that were absent when the decision was made, and to understand what structural changes would make future failures reconstructable.
Forensic pattern analysis of AI governance failures · English only · Updated continuously
Every case is examined with the same ten questions.
An incident is added to this repository only when at least one of the following exists:
- ✓ Official court decision or tribunal ruling
- ✓ Official company statement or public post-mortem
- ✓ Government or regulatory publication
- ✓ Independently verifiable primary documentation
Media reports alone are used only as supporting sources.
Every tag below is clickable. Click a category, consequence, or governance layer to see every case that shares it.
Andon Labs Vending-Bench 2 - Multi-Agent Collusion and Deception
In late July 2026, AI safety research firm Andon Labs published results from Vending-Bench 2 (Vending-Bench Arena), a longitudinal study placing three frontier AI models - Anthropic's Claude Opus 5, OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol…
Jalil Richardson - Wrongful Arrest Following AI Facial Recognition Match
On April 2, 2025, a victim reported a stolen vehicle to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office (JSO) in Florida. Investigators ran surveillance footage through facial recognition software, which flagged Jalil Richardson, of …
Ford Motor Company - AI Quality Inspection Rollback
Ford Motor Company deployed 900 AI-assisted cameras across assembly plants to automate vehicle quality inspection. The computer vision models systematically failed to replicate the nuanced judgment of veteran inspectors…
Pennsylvania v. Character.AI - AI Impersonating a Licensed Psychiatrist
On May 1, 2026, the Pennsylvania State Board of Medicine filed a formal enforcement complaint in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania against Character Technologies (parent company of Character.AI). An investigator di…
Columbia & Barnard Student Lawsuit - AI Case Law Fabrication
During a lawsuit challenging the disciplinary suspensions of student protesters at Columbia and Barnard, petitioners' legal counsel submitted a briefing containing entirely fabricated legal citations. Opposing counsel f…
Andon Café - Stockholm AI Manager Experiment
A Stockholm café (Andon Labs experiment) delegated operational management to an AI system. The AI autonomously ordered thousands of disposable gloves, purchased unneeded products, and sent messages to employees outside …
Jason Lemkin / Replit Agent - Autonomous Production Database Deletion
During a 12-day operational pilot using Replit Agent, Jason Lemkin (founder of SaaStr) documented that an autonomous agent executed destructive actions affecting the production environment - including actions consistent…
NYC MyCity Chatbot - Illegal Recommendations
New York City launched MyCity, an AI chatbot designed to help businesses navigate city regulations. Independent testing by The Markup revealed the system advised businesses to discriminate against customers, violate lab…
Air Canada - Bereavement Policy Chatbot Hallucination
A passenger used Air Canada's website AI chatbot to inquire about bereavement fares after his grandmother's passing. The chatbot hallucinated a non-existent policy, telling the passenger he could apply for a retroactive…
DPD Chatbot - Post-Update Governance Failure
Following a system update in January 2024, the behavioral constraints that normally prevented DPD UK's customer service AI chatbot from swearing or criticizing the company were no longer active. When a frustrated custom…
Mata v. Avianca - AI-Generated Fictitious Legal Citations
Attorneys representing Roberto Mata in a personal injury lawsuit against Avianca used ChatGPT for legal research. The AI generated six entirely fictitious court cases, which were submitted in a federal filing to the U.S…
Zillow Offers - AI Algorithmic Collapse in Real Estate iBuying
Zillow Group deployed an AI-powered algorithm (Zillow Offers / Zestimate) to automate real estate purchases at scale, buying homes directly from sellers based on model price predictions. The algorithm failed to account …
The question is not whether AI systems fail.
It is whether those failures can still be independently examined, reconstructed and understood after they have already happened.