MIT AI Risk Repository · Risk Sub-Category · 22.02.02
Corporate AI Race
Category: AI Race (Environmental/Structural)
Description
"Although competition between companies can be beneficial, creating more useful products for consumers, there are also pitfalls. First, the benefits of economic activity may be unevenly distributed, incentivizing those who benefit most from it to disregard the harms to others. Second, under intense market competition, businesses tend to focus much more on short-term gains than on long-term outcomes. With this mindset, companies often pursue something that can make a lot of profit in the short term, even if it poses a societal risk in the long term."
From An Overview of Catastrophic AI Risks (Hendrycks2023), as extracted by the MIT AI Risk Repository (CC BY 4.0).
Classification
- Subdomain
- 6.4 Competitive dynamics
- Causal entity
- Human
- Intent
- Unintentional
- Timing
- Other
Subdomain definition: AI developers or state-like actors competing in an AI ‘race’ by rapidly developing, deploying, and applying AI systems to maximize strategic or economic advantage, increasing the risk they release unsafe and error-prone systems.
Real-world incidents in this subdomain
- Korean Internet Portal Giant Naver Manipulated Shopping and Video Search Algorithms to Favor In-House Services
- Apple Tweaked App Store Ranking Algorithms, Allegedly Resulted in Demotion of Local Apps in China
- Inefficiencies in the United States Resident Matching Program