Incident Response for AI Systems: Handling AI Failures

I wrote “Incident Response for AI Systems: Handling AI Failures” to share practical, production-minded guidance on this topic.

AI Incident Response Framework

from dataclasses import dataclass
from enum import Enum
from typing import List, Dict, Optional
from datetime import datetime

class IncidentSeverity(Enum):
    SEV1 = "critical"  # System down, data corruption
    SEV2 = "high"      # Major feature unavailable
    SEV3 = "medium"    # Degraded performance
    SEV4 = "low"       # Minor issues

class IncidentType(Enum):
    HALLUCINATION = "hallucination"
    TOXICITY = "toxicity"
    DATA_LEAK = "data_leak"
    PERFORMANCE = "performance"
    AVAILABILITY = "availability"
    BIAS = "bias"

@dataclass
class AIIncident:
    id: str
    type: IncidentType
    severity: IncidentSeverity
    description: str
    affected_systems: List[str]
    detected_at: datetime
    mitigated_at: Optional[datetime] = None
    resolved_at: Optional[datetime] = None

class AIIncidentResponse:
    def __init__(self):
        self.incidents = {}
        self.playbooks = self.load_playbooks()

    async def detect_incident(self, alert: Dict) -> Optional[AIIncident]:
        """Detect and classify AI incident from alert."""
        incident_type = self.classify_incident(alert)

        if not incident_type:
            return None

        severity = self.assess_severity(alert, incident_type)

        incident = AIIncident(
            id=self.generate_id(),
            type=incident_type,
            severity=severity,
            description=alert.get("description"),
            affected_systems=alert.get("systems", []),
            detected_at=datetime.now()
        )

        self.incidents[incident.id] = incident
        await self.trigger_response(incident)

        return incident

    async def trigger_response(self, incident: AIIncident):
        """Execute incident response playbook."""
        playbook = self.playbooks.get(incident.type)

        if not playbook:
            await self.generic_response(incident)
            return

        # Execute playbook steps
        for step in playbook.steps:
            try:
                await step.execute(incident)
            except Exception as e:
                await self.log_error(incident, step, e)

    def load_playbooks(self) -> Dict:
        """Load incident response playbooks."""
        return {
            IncidentType.HALLUCINATION: Playbook([
                Step("disable_endpoint", self.disable_endpoint),
                Step("notify_team", self.notify_team),
                Step("collect_evidence", self.collect_hallucination_evidence),
                Step("rollback_model", self.rollback_to_previous),
                Step("verify_fix", self.verify_endpoint)
            ]),
            IncidentType.TOXICITY: Playbook([
                Step("block_output", self.block_toxic_output),
                Step("notify_team", self.notify_team),
                Step("review_guardrails", self.review_guardrails),
                Step("update_filters", self.update_content_filters)
            ]),
            IncidentType.DATA_LEAK: Playbook([
                Step("disable_immediately", self.disable_endpoint),
                Step("notify_security", self.notify_security_team),
                Step("preserve_evidence", self.preserve_logs),
                Step("assess_impact", self.assess_data_impact),
                Step("notify_affected", self.notify_affected_users)
            ])
        }

    async def rollback_to_previous(self, incident: AIIncident):
        """Rollback to previous known-good version."""
        for system in incident.affected_systems:
            previous = await self.get_previous_version(system)
            await self.deploy_version(system, previous)

Effective incident response minimizes AI system impact and enables quick recovery.\n\n## Takeaways\n\nAdd a concise, personal takeaway and recommended next steps here.\n