MIT AI Risk Repository · Risk Sub-Category · 24.04.05

Self-Actualisation Harms

Category: AI Influence

Open the MIT Risk Navigator All entries from Gabriel2024

Description

"These harms hinder a person’s ability to pursue a personally fulfilling life. At the individual level, an AI assistant may, through manipulation, cause users to lose control over their future life trajectory. Over time, subtle behavioural shifts can accumulate, leading to significant changes in an individual’s life that may be viewed as problematic. AI systems often seek to understand user preferences to enhance service delivery. However, when continuous optimisation is employed in these systems, it can become challenging to discern whether the system is genuinely learning from user preferenc

From The Ethics of Advanced AI Assistants (Gabriel2024), as extracted by the MIT AI Risk Repository (CC BY 4.0).

Classification

Domain: 5. Human-Computer Interaction
Subdomain: 5.2 Loss of human agency and autonomy
Causal entity: AI
Intent: Intentional
Timing: Post-deployment

Subdomain definition: Humans delegating key decisions to AI systems, or AI systems making decisions that diminish human control and autonomy, potentially leading to humans feeling disempowered, losing the ability to shape a fulfilling life trajectory or becoming cognitively enfeebled.

Real-world incidents in this subdomain

Browse all incidents in this subdomain

How other frameworks describe this risk

Autonomy
A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)
Autonomy/agency loss
A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)
Personality rights loss
A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)
Gradual loss of control
Dimensional Characterization and Pathway Modeling for Catastrophic AI Risks (Chin2025)
AI enables automation of military decision-making
A Survey of the Potential Long-term Impacts of AI: How AI Could Lead to Long-term Changes in Science, Cooperation, Power, Epistemics and Values (Clarke2023)
AI-induced strategic instability
A Survey of the Potential Long-term Impacts of AI: How AI Could Lead to Long-term Changes in Science, Cooperation, Power, Epistemics and Values (Clarke2023)
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Capabilities and Risks from Frontier AI (DSIT2023)
Humans might increasingly hand over control to misaligned AI systems
Capabilities and Risks from Frontier AI (DSIT2023)

Other entries from Gabriel2024

Capability failures Risk Category · 7.3
Lack of capability for task Risk Sub-Category · 7.3
Difficult to develop metrics for evaluating benefits or harms caused by AI assistants Risk Sub-Category · 6.5
Safe exploration problem with widely deployed AI assistants Risk Sub-Category · 7.3
Goal-related failures Risk Category · 7.1
Misaligned consequentialist reasoning Risk Sub-Category · 7.3
Specification gaming Risk Sub-Category · 7.1
Goal misgeneralisation Risk Sub-Category · 7.1
Deceptive alignment Risk Sub-Category · 7.1
Malicious Uses Risk Category · 4.0
Offensive Cyber Operations (General) Risk Sub-Category · 4.2
AI-Powered Spear-Phishing at Scale Risk Sub-Category · 4.1