AI Failure Index
AI Machine Translation failures
Automated translation between languages. Failures change what someone said, with legal consequences.
- Incidents
- 3
- Highest severity
- High
- Sources cited
- 7
- Newest indexed
- Jun 9, 2026
US government asylum claim denied due to AI translation error
A Pashto-speaking refugee's asylum bid was rejected by a US court after an AI translation tool incorrectly changed "I" to "we" in her written statement. This created a perceived contradiction with her oral testimony, leading to the denial of her asylum claim.
- Confidence
- Medium (multi-source)
Facebook translation error leads to arrest of Palestinian man
In October 2017 Israeli police arrested and later released a Palestinian man after relying on an automatic translation of his Arabic Facebook post that reportedly rendered a benign caption as a violent phrase in Hebrew. Multiple news outlets reported that police used the platform's translation output when assessing the post. The incident drew attention to risks from automatic translation in law enforcement contexts.
- Confidence
- Medium (multi-source)
Google Translate deemed inadequate for obtaining search consent in US federal court
In the case of United States v. Cruz-Zamora, a federal judge ruled that Google Translate's inaccuracy made it an insufficient tool for officers to obtain unequivocal consent for a warrantless search. This ruling led to the suppression of narcotics seized during the stop.
- Confidence
- Medium (multi-source)