MIT AI Risk Repository · Risk Category · 35.03.00
Eroded epistemics
Description
Strong AI may... enable personally customized disinformation campaigns at scale... AI itself could generate highly persuasive arguments that invoke primal human responses and inflame crowds... d undermine collective decision-making, radicalize individuals, derail moral progress, or erode consensus reality
From X-Risk Analysis for AI Research (Hendrycks2022), as extracted by the MIT AI Risk Repository (CC BY 4.0).
Classification
- Domain
- 3. Misinformation
- Causal entity
- AI
- Intent
- Other
- Timing
- Post-deployment
Subdomain definition: Highly personalized AI-generated misinformation creating “filter bubbles” where individuals only see what matches their existing beliefs, undermining shared reality, weakening social cohesion and political processes.
Real-world incidents in this subdomain
- Google Books Appears to Be Indexing Works Written by AI
- Uptick in Low-Quality AI-Produced Content Degraded Publishers' Submission Management
- Korean Politician Employed Deepfake as Campaign Representative
- Facebook Political Ad Delivery Algorithms Inferred Users' Political Alignment, Inhibiting Political Campaigns' Reach
How other frameworks describe this risk
- Information degradation
- Radicalisation
- Institutional trust loss
- Widespread use of persuasive tools contributes to splintered epistemic communities
- Reduced decision-making capacity as a result of decreased trust in information
- Worsened epistemic processes for society
- AI contributes to increased online polarisation
- Degradation of the information environment