When AI goes wrong


Isaac Arroyo
  • English
  • Arabic

The AI incidents database is a community and open-source project dedicated to documenting the harm caused by artificial intelligence systems.

The project began in early 2019, as indicated by the first entry in the GitHub repository. It has reported more than 1,000 AI incidents since, with the highest annual number – 265 incidents – coming in 2024: only halfway through 2025, already the second-highest annual figure currently stands at 163.

What are AI incidents?

Artificial intelligence, better known as AI, is the capability of machines to perform actions that were initially thought only humans could, such as, but not limited to, pattern recognition, understanding language and inferring. So, AI incidents are alleged harm or near-harm events to people, property, or the environment where AI is implicated. For example, within 24 hours in March 2016, Microsoft released and removed its chatbot Tay over a number of racist and sexist tweets.

Deepfakes on the rise

Since 2014, up to its latest update, the database has reported 190 incidents (17.2 per cent of the total number of incidents) concerning deepfakes, audio or visual content that places someone's face or voice into someone else's in a way that appears real. Since the start of 2023, deepfakes have accounted for almost a third of the number of AI incidents reported annually.

Here are some of this year's cases:

  • February 15, 2025: A teenager in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, allegedly generated deepfake nudes of some of his classmates and reportedly shared the altered images with others.
  • March - May, 2025: AI-generated deepfake music videos were uploaded across a reported 127 YouTube channels. The videos depict global celebrities praising Burkina Faso President Ibrahim Traore and endorsing military rule.
  • June 13, 2025: A deepfake video showing Bulgarian tennis player Grigor Dimitrov has allegedly been circulating on social media promoting a fraudulent stock and cryptocurrency trading programme.

Concerns over AI use

According to the Global Risks Report 2025, the World Economic Forum asked people around the world about the level of severity of a list of potential risks over a two and 10-year period. Adverse outcomes of AI technology ranked 31st worldwide for the two-year spell. However, for long-term risk it climbed to sixth spot and in the Middle East and North Africa region, it occupies second position, an indication of the problems the region is encountering with certain aspects of AI technology.

Company profile

Company: Eighty6 

Date started: October 2021 

Founders: Abdul Kader Saadi and Anwar Nusseibeh 

Based: Dubai, UAE 

Sector: Hospitality 

Size: 25 employees 

Funding stage: Pre-series A 

Investment: $1 million 

Investors: Seed funding, angel investors  

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Who's who in Yemen conflict

Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government

Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council

Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south

Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory

Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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Stars: Samuel L Jackson, Dominique Fishback, Walton Goggins

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Our legal columnist

Name: Yousef Al Bahar

Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994

Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers

Sustainable Development Goals

1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere

2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture

3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all

7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation

10. Reduce inequality  within and among countries

11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its effects

14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development

15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss

16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development

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Updated: July 02, 2025, 10:00 AM