Organizations are increasingly using AI, which increases the number of incidents: deployments that cause or nearly cause real-world harm. In aviation and computer security, there are databases that collect incidents (such as accidents or security breaches). Now AI has something similar.

The Responsible AI Collective has long been collecting incidents, originally publishing its collection in a shared spreadsheet going back to 2015. Now, the AI Incident Database has its own website. Incidents are catalogued by name, date, and description, and the records contain information about who was harmed, the timeline of the event, news or scholarly articles regarding the event, all in a conveniently searchable database.

The records in this database are curated by humans, with submissions made through the website. If you want to find out about how the “smart summon” feature of a Tesla caused the vehicle to slam into a private jet, or what happened to the 24 Amazon workers who were hospitalized after a robot punctured a can of bear spray, this is the place to go. The incidents are not pretty, but they make up for their ugliness by sheer volume.