AgentPostmortem
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Registry/Tags/#hallucination
Classification Tag

#hallucination

The agent confidently generated false information, fabricated APIs, URLs, or facts.

8
Cases
#hallucination#expensive-mistake#wrong-recipient#deleted-data#security-fail#social-blunder#code-disaster#infinite-loop#scope-creep#compliance-violation#data-exfiltration#misunderstood-instruction
0
APM-0046·Other / Unknown·LOW
Jun 10, 2026

Sports Illustrated published product reviews under fake AI-generated authors with AI headshots

Futurism reported in November 2023 that Sports Illustrated published product-review content under fabricated author personas — for example 'Drew Ortiz,' whose headshot was bought from an AI-portrait site and who had no real existence — supplied by third-party vendor AdVon Commerce. After inquiries, the fake authors vanished from the site. Publisher The Arena Group denied the articles themselves were AI-written but acknowledged pseudonyms; the episode damaged SI's credibility.

hallucination
0
APM-0049·Other / Unknown·MODERATE·~$193k
Jun 10, 2026

FTC fined 'robot lawyer' DoNotPay $193,000 over unproven AI legal-service claims

The FTC charged in September 2024 that DoNotPay marketed an 'AI lawyer' as a substitute for human attorneys without testing whether it performed at a lawyer's level or employing lawyers to verify quality, and that a feature claiming to scan small-business sites for legal violations was ineffective. DoNotPay settled for $193,000, agreed to notify 2021–2023 subscribers, and was barred from unsubstantiated 'robot lawyer' claims (final order January 2025).

hallucination
0
APM-0039·Azure OpenAI·MODERATE
Jun 10, 2026

New York City's official 'MyCity' business chatbot told entrepreneurs they could break the law

NYC's MyCity chatbot, launched October 2023 to help business owners, was found by The Markup (March 2024) to give dangerously inaccurate legal guidance — telling users that landlords could refuse Section 8 voucher holders, that employers could take a cut of workers' tips, and that there were no limits on residential rent, all illegal under NYC/NY law. The city initially kept the bot online with a disclaimer; it was ultimately taken down.

hallucination
0
APM-0040·OpenAI·MODERATE·~$5k
Jun 10, 2026

Lawyers sanctioned after ChatGPT fabricated six fake case citations in Mata v. Avianca

In a personal-injury suit against Avianca, attorney Steven Schwartz used ChatGPT for research and submitted a brief citing six judicial decisions that did not exist — ChatGPT invented them and even 'confirmed' they were real when asked. U.S. District Judge Castel sanctioned Schwartz and co-counsel Peter LoDuca $5,000 and required corrective letters. It became the landmark cautionary tale about AI hallucination in legal filings.

hallucination
0
APM-0052·Other / Unknown·LOW
Jun 10, 2026

CNET quietly published 77 AI-written finance articles; over half needed corrections

From November 2022, CNET published 77 financial explainers generated by an in-house AI tool under the byline 'CNET Money Staff,' with little disclosure. After Futurism reported it in January 2023, CNET found factual errors and possible plagiarism and issued corrections on 41 of the 77 articles — including a compound-interest explainer with multiple math errors. CNET paused the AI tool and added clearer disclosure.

hallucination
0
APM-0043·Gemini·LOW
Jun 10, 2026

Google paused Gemini's image generation after it depicted Nazis and U.S. Founding Fathers as people of color

In February 2024, Google's Gemini image generator produced historically inaccurate images — including racially diverse 1943 German (Nazi) soldiers and people of color as U.S. Founding Fathers — due to over-aggressive diversity tuning that ignored historical context. Google paused Gemini's generation of images of people; CEO Sundar Pichai called the outputs 'completely unacceptable.' The episode drew major backlash.

hallucination
0
APM-0053·OpenAI·MINIMAL
Jun 10, 2026

Amazon listings appeared with names like 'I'm sorry but I cannot fulfill this request… it goes against OpenAI use policy'

In January 2024, numerous Amazon product listings appeared with titles and descriptions that were raw ChatGPT error or refusal messages — for example 'I'm sorry but I cannot fulfill this request it goes against OpenAI use policy' — revealing that sellers were auto-generating listings with LLMs and posting the output unread. Amazon removed the flagged listings.

hallucination