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Incident 8: Uber Autonomous Cars Running Red Lights

Description: Uber vehicles equipped with technology allowing for autonomous driving running red lights in San Francisco street testing.

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Entities

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Alleged: Uber developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed pedestrians and Motorists.

Incident Stats

Incident ID
8
Report Count
10
Incident Date
2014-08-15
Editors
Sean McGregor
Applied Taxonomies
CSETv0, CSETv1, MIT

CSETv1 Taxonomy Classifications

Taxonomy Details

Incident Number

The number of the incident in the AI Incident Database.
 

8

CSETv0 Taxonomy Classifications

Taxonomy Details

Problem Nature

Indicates which, if any, of the following types of AI failure describe the incident: "Specification," i.e. the system's behavior did not align with the true intentions of its designer, operator, etc; "Robustness," i.e. the system operated unsafely because of features or changes in its environment, or in the inputs the system received; "Assurance," i.e. the system could not be adequately monitored or controlled during operation.
 

Specification, Assurance

Physical System

Where relevant, indicates whether the AI system(s) was embedded into or tightly associated with specific types of hardware.
 

Vehicle/mobile robot

Level of Autonomy

The degree to which the AI system(s) functions independently from human intervention. "High" means there is no human involved in the system action execution; "Medium" means the system generates a decision and a human oversees the resulting action; "low" means the system generates decision-support output and a human makes a decision and executes an action.
 

Medium

Nature of End User

"Expert" if users with special training or technical expertise were the ones meant to benefit from the AI system(s)’ operation; "Amateur" if the AI systems were primarily meant to benefit the general public or untrained users.
 

Expert

Public Sector Deployment

"Yes" if the AI system(s) involved in the accident were being used by the public sector or for the administration of public goods (for example, public transportation). "No" if the system(s) were being used in the private sector or for commercial purposes (for example, a ride-sharing company), on the other.
 

No

Data Inputs

A brief description of the data that the AI system(s) used or were trained on.
 

Traffick patterns, environment surroundings, human driver input

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 Occurrence+3
Uber's Self-Driving Car Runs Red Light in San Francisco
+4
A self-driving Uber ran a red light last December, contrary to company claims
Danger, danger! 10 alarming examples of AI gone wild
Uber's Self-Driving Car Runs Red Light in San Francisco

Uber's Self-Driving Car Runs Red Light in San Francisco

wired.com

Uber’s Self Driving Cars Are Running Red Lights, Uber’s Blaming “Human Error”

Uber’s Self Driving Cars Are Running Red Lights, Uber’s Blaming “Human Error”

futurism.com

Witness says self-driving Uber ran red light on its own, disputing Uber's claims

Witness says self-driving Uber ran red light on its own, disputing Uber's claims

theguardian.com

Uber Denounces Traffic Light Laws After Self-Driving Car Runs Red Light

Uber Denounces Traffic Light Laws After Self-Driving Car Runs Red Light

medium.com

A self-driving Uber ran a red light last December, contrary to company claims

A self-driving Uber ran a red light last December, contrary to company claims

theverge.com

Report contradicts Uber's explanation of robocar red light slip

Report contradicts Uber's explanation of robocar red light slip

cnet.com

Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Missed Six Red Lights In San Francisco

Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Missed Six Red Lights In San Francisco

fortune.com

Uber's Autonomous Vehicles Responsible For Red Light Violations, Not "Human Error"

Uber's Autonomous Vehicles Responsible For Red Light Violations, Not "Human Error"

thedrive.com

Investigation: Uber red light-running car was fault of technology, not driver

Investigation: Uber red light-running car was fault of technology, not driver

sfexaminer.com

Danger, danger! 10 alarming examples of AI gone wild

Danger, danger! 10 alarming examples of AI gone wild

infoworld.com

Uber's Self-Driving Car Runs Red Light in San Francisco
wired.com · 2016

An Uber equipped to drive itself ran a red light in San Francisco’s SOMA neighborhood Wednesday morning, per a YouTube video apparently shot from a local Luxor cab and reported by The Examiner:

In the video, a Volvo XC90 SUV decked out in t…

Uber’s Self Driving Cars Are Running Red Lights, Uber’s Blaming “Human Error”
futurism.com · 2016

Uber’s San Francisco trial run of its self-driving service last Tuesday is catching people’s attention. Unfortunately, it might not exactly be the kind of hype that Uber hoped for. As previously noted, the ride-hailing service company’s aut…

Witness says self-driving Uber ran red light on its own, disputing Uber's claims
theguardian.com · 2016

Company insists traffic violations in San Francisco are the result of ‘human error’ by drivers who can take control if needed, but witness account contradicts this

An autonomous Uber malfunctioned while in “self-driving mode” and caused a n…

Uber Denounces Traffic Light Laws After Self-Driving Car Runs Red Light
medium.com · 2016

Uber Denounces Traffic Light Laws After Self-Driving Car Runs Red Light

Halting Problem Blocked Unblock Follow Following Dec 23, 2016

SOMA, SAN FRANCISCO — Uber isn’t exactly known for following the rules. The ride-sharing company recently …

A self-driving Uber ran a red light last December, contrary to company claims
theverge.com · 2017

Last December, a self-driving Uber was caught on camera running a red light in San Francisco, shortly after the vehicles began testing on the roads. While Uber claimed at the time that a driver was at fault, a report from The New York Times…

Report contradicts Uber's explanation of robocar red light slip
cnet.com · 2017

James Martin/CNET

Call it another pothole for Uber.

Remember that taxicab dash-cam video of an Uber robocar running a red light in San Francisco last December? (It's embedded below.) Uber -- which had put the self-driving cars on the street…

Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Missed Six Red Lights In San Francisco
fortune.com · 2017

Continuing a week-plus of embarrassments and bad news for Uber, the New York Times on Friday reported that traffic violations by the company’s self-driving cars were caused by problems with the cars’ mapping programs, and not, as the compan…

Uber's Autonomous Vehicles Responsible For Red Light Violations, Not "Human Error"
thedrive.com · 2017

Despite statements to the press that "human error" was to blame for its vehicles running a series of red lights in San Francisco, the company admitted internally that it was the car that was in autonomous mode when it failed to stop at the …

Investigation: Uber red light-running car was fault of technology, not driver
sfexaminer.com · 2017

A taxi’s dashcam caught this self-driving car running a red light on Third Street in December. Uber originally said a human was driving. (Courtesy photo)

Uber told reporters that a self-driving car shown on video running a red light in San …

Danger, danger! 10 alarming examples of AI gone wild
infoworld.com · 2017

Science fiction is lousy with tales of artificial intelligence run amok. There's HAL 9000, of course, and the nefarious Skynet system from the "Terminator" films. Last year, the sinister AI Ultron came this close to defeating the Avengers, …

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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