Description: Lake Tahoe travelers were allegedly guided by Google Maps into hazardous shortcuts in the mountains during a snowstorm.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Google Maps developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed Google Maps users traveling in Sierra Nevada and Google Maps users traveling in the mountains.
CSETv1 Taxonomy Classifications
Taxonomy DetailsIncident Number
The number of the incident in the AI Incident Database.
155
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.
- 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

It appears that Google Maps may have guided weary Lake Tahoe travelers to closed-off and even dangerous roads amid record-setting snowfall.
Social media posts, including from Crystal Kolden, a professor of forest sciences at UC Merced, have…

The road once carried stagecoaches during the Gold Rush, twisting its way through what is now a national forest and an area of the Sierra Nevada known for snowmobiling.
In the winter, the rugged passage, known as the Quincy-La Porte Road or…
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.
Similar Incidents
Did our AI mess up? Flag the unrelated incidents
Similar Incidents
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