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Incident 752: AI-Generated Obituaries Are Reportedly Intensifying Grief for Bereaved Families

Description: AI-generated obituaries on various websites are reported to have compounded the grief of bereaved families by spreading incorrect and unauthorized information about their loved ones. These obituaries, produced without the families' knowledge, often contain errors and appear on ad-filled sites, exacerbating the emotional distress of the grieving process.

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Alleged: unknown developed an AI system deployed by Obitsupdate , BNN , The Thaiger and FreshersLive, which harmed Bridget Todd , Bridget Todd's family , Chris Mohney , Chris Mohney's family and Bereaved families.

Incident Stats

Incident ID
752
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2024-07-07
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
 

3.1. False or misleading information

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. Misinformation

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
 

Intentional

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

Incident OccurrenceAI-written obituaries are compounding people’s grief
AI-written obituaries are compounding people’s grief

AI-written obituaries are compounding people’s grief

fastcompany.com

AI-written obituaries are compounding people’s grief
fastcompany.com · 2024

"Where do I even start?" says Bridget Todd, the creator and host of the podcast There are No Girls on the Internet."It's just been a real motherfucker. I feel like I'm still processing it all."

In early July, Todd lost her mother Carolyn 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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