OOF-AII-315781

Machine Personal Assistants Failed to Maintain Social Norms

During an experiment of software personal assistants at the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) at the University of Southern California (USC), researchers found that the assistants violated the privacy of their principals and were unable to respect the social norms of the office.

Event date
2008-07-01
Country
United States of America
Severity
Low
Evidence state
Single-source

Assessment status

Generated from available public incident evidence using OOF® governance methodology. It is not an official investigation, legal determination, regulatory finding, certification, or OOF® Approved Assessment.

View source record from AI Incident Database (Responsible AI Collaborative)

Assessment confidence dimensions

Source corroboration
Single-source

Measures source-group corroboration only; it does not establish factual truth.

Extraction completeness
High

Measures populated source fields after deterministic normalization; it does not measure correctness.

Methodological assignment confidence
Limited

Measures automated assignment support; substantive correctness requires authorized human review.

Known facts from the incident record

  • The incident record identifies the event date as 2008-07-01.
  • The incident record identifies the location as United States of America.

Reported claims

  • During an experiment of software personal assistants at the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) at the University of Southern California (USC), researchers found that the assistants violated the privacy of their principals and were unable to respect the social norms of the office.

Material unknowns

  • Independent corroboration is not established in the available incident record.

Primary governance problem

The incident appears to expose a governance problem involving information, support. Available reporting supports preliminary methodological interpretation, not a finding of fault or non-compliance.

Architecture intelligence

PGA™ — Prediction Governance Architecture

Primary architecture

The reported information, support concern falls within the governed questions represented by PGA™ — Prediction Governance Architecture.

Governance focus: How should information, support be governed in the conditions described by the available incident evidence?

Deeper methodology is withheld because the available evidence does not justify a Parent Standard or Core Module.

Preliminary governance questions

  • How should information, support be governed in the conditions described by the available incident evidence?
  • What operational authority and controls applied to Usc Information Sciences Institute at the relevant time?
  • What evidence would establish how yes produced or enabled the reported outcome?
  • What additional independent evidence is required to resolve the material evidence gaps?

Evidence gaps and limitations

  • Only one independent source group is represented; corroboration is not established.
  • AI technology is not specified in the source record.

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