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Incident 639: Customer Overcharged Due to Air Canada Chatbot's False Discount Claims

Responded
Description: Air Canada was ordered to pay over $600 in damages for providing inaccurate bereavement discount information via its chatbot, leading to a customer overpaying for flights. The tribunal ruled the airline responsible for the chatbot's misinformation.

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Entities

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Alleged: Air Canada developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed Jake Moffatt.

Incident Stats

Incident ID
639
Report Count
4
Incident Date
2022-11-11
Editors
Applied Taxonomies
MIT

MIT Taxonomy Classifications

Machine-Classified
Taxonomy Details

Risk Subdomain

A further 23 subdomains create an accessible and understandable classification of hazards and harms associated with AI
 

7.3. Lack of capability or robustness

Risk Domain

The Domain Taxonomy of AI Risks classifies risks into seven AI risk domains: (1) Discrimination & toxicity, (2) Privacy & security, (3) Misinformation, (4) Malicious actors & misuse, (5) Human-computer interaction, (6) Socioeconomic & environmental harms, and (7) AI system safety, failures & limitations.
 
  1. AI system safety, failures, and limitations

Entity

Which, if any, entity is presented as the main cause of the risk
 

AI

Timing

The stage in the AI lifecycle at which the risk is presented as occurring
 

Post-deployment

Intent

Whether the risk is presented as occurring as an expected or unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
 

Unintentional

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

Incident OccurrenceAir Canada must pay damages after chatbot lies to grieving passenger about discount - Response+2
Air Canada must honor refund policy invented by airline’s chatbot
Air Canada must pay damages after chatbot lies to grieving passenger about discount

Air Canada must pay damages after chatbot lies to grieving passenger about discount

theregister.com

Air Canada must honor refund policy invented by airline’s chatbot

Air Canada must honor refund policy invented by airline’s chatbot

arstechnica.com

Air Canada chatbot promised a discount. Now the airline has to pay it.

Air Canada chatbot promised a discount. Now the airline has to pay it.

washingtonpost.com

Airline held liable for its chatbot giving passenger bad advice - what this means for travellers

Airline held liable for its chatbot giving passenger bad advice - what this means for travellers

bbc.com

Air Canada must pay damages after chatbot lies to grieving passenger about discount
theregister.com · 2024
Katyanna Quach post-incident response

Air Canada must pay a passenger hundreds of dollars in damages after its online chatbot gave the guy wrong information before he booked a flight.

Jake Moffatt took the airline to a small-claims tribunal after the biz refused to refund him f…

Air Canada must honor refund policy invented by airline’s chatbot
arstechnica.com · 2024

After months of resisting, Air Canada was forced to give a partial refund to a grieving passenger who was misled by an airline chatbot inaccurately explaining the airline's bereavement travel policy.

On the day Jake Moffatt's grandmother di…

Air Canada chatbot promised a discount. Now the airline has to pay it.
washingtonpost.com · 2024
Kyle Melnick post-incident response

After his grandmother died in Ontario a few years ago, British Columbia resident Jake Moffatt visited Air Canada's website to book a flight for the funeral. He received assistance from a chatbot, which told him the airline offered reduced r…

Airline held liable for its chatbot giving passenger bad advice - what this means for travellers
bbc.com · 2024
Maria Yagoda post-incident response

Artificial intelligence is having a growing impact on the way we travel, and a remarkable new case shows what AI-powered chatbots can get wrong – and who should pay. In 2022, Air Canada's chatbot promised a discount that wasn't available to…

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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