MIT AI Risk Repository · Risk Sub-Category · 47.01.06

Opacity (industry opacity)

Category: Technical and operational risks

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Description

"Opacity is not solely due to the technological complexity that limits developers’ and users’ understanding of how generative models function on a technical level. It is further exacerbated by the practices of organizations and companies that are advancing the field. Many are private companies that choose to withhold from the public many of the precise characteristics of their most advanced models."

From Regulating under Uncertainty: Governance Options for Generative AI (G'sell2024), as extracted by the MIT AI Risk Repository (CC BY 4.0).

Classification

Domain: 6. Socioeconomic & Environmental
Subdomain: 6.4 Competitive dynamics
Causal entity: Human
Intent: Intentional
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

Browse all incidents in this subdomain

How other frameworks describe this risk

Increased competition
A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)
Geopolitical risk
Dimensional Characterization and Pathway Modeling for Catastrophic AI Risks (Chin2025)
Worsened conflict
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)
Resource conflicts driven by AI development
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)
Type 4: Willful indifference
TASRA: a Taxonomy and Analysis of Societal-Scale Risks from AI (Critch2023)
Competitive pressures in GPAI product release
Risk Sources and Risk Management Measures in Support of Standards for General-Purpose AI Systems (Gipiškis2024)
Corporate AI Race
An Overview of Catastrophic AI Risks (Hendrycks2023)
Military AI Arms Race
An Overview of Catastrophic AI Risks (Hendrycks2023)

Other entries from G'sell2024

Technical and operational risks Risk Category · 7.3
Technical vulnerabilities (Robustness - unexpected behaviour) Risk Sub-Category · 7.3
Technical vulnerabilities (Robustness - unexpected behaviour) Additional evidence
Technical vulnerabilities (Robustness - vulnerability to jailbreaking Risk Sub-Category · 2.2
Technical vulnerabilities (Robustness - vulnerability to jailbreaking Additional evidence
Technical vulnerabilities (The risk of misalignment) Risk Sub-Category · 7.1
Technical vulnerabilities (The risk of misalignment) Additional evidence
Factually incorrect content (inaccuracies and fabricated sources) Risk Sub-Category · 3.1
Factually incorrect content (inaccuracies and fabricated sources) Additional evidence
Opacity (the black box problem) Risk Sub-Category · 7.4
Opacity (industry opacity) Additional evidence
Ethical and social risks Risk Category