MIT AI Risk Repository · Risk Sub-Category · 47.04.01
Concentration of market power (Trend toward market concentration)
Category: Environmental, economical, and societal challenges
Description
"In the generative AI market, barriers to entry are very high. Developers need access to vast volumes of data, computational resources, technical expertise, and capital. Large technology companies with such access are able to exploit economies of scale, economies of scope, and feedback effects (learning effects from user- generated data).542 All this gives them an overwhelming advantage over smaller companies, making competition increasingly challenging for these smaller entities."
From Regulating under Uncertainty: Governance Options for Generative AI (G'sell2024), as extracted by the MIT AI Risk Repository (CC BY 4.0).
Classification
- Causal entity
- Human
- Intent
- Intentional
- Timing
- Other
Subdomain definition: AI-driven concentration of power and resources within certain entities or groups, especially those with access to or ownership of powerful AI systems, leading to inequitable distribution of benefits and increased societal inequality.
Real-world incidents in this subdomain
- LLM Scrapers Allegedly Target Multiple Open Source Projects Disrupting the FOSS Ecosystem
- Coupang Allegedly Tweaked Search Algorithms to Boost Own Products
- Amazon Allegedly Tweaked Search Algorithm to Boost Its Own Products
- Gmail’s Inbox Sorting System Reportedly Reduced Visibility of Political Emails and Campaign Calls-to-Action
- Google Fined for Changing Shopping Algorithms in EU to Favor Own Service
- Amazon India Allegedly Rigged Search Results to Promote Own Products
How other frameworks describe this risk
Other entries from G'sell2024
- Technical and operational risks
- Technical vulnerabilities (Robustness - unexpected behaviour)
- Technical vulnerabilities (Robustness - unexpected behaviour)
- Technical vulnerabilities (Robustness - vulnerability to jailbreaking
- Technical vulnerabilities (Robustness - vulnerability to jailbreaking
- Technical vulnerabilities (The risk of misalignment)
- Technical vulnerabilities (The risk of misalignment)
- Factually incorrect content (inaccuracies and fabricated sources)
- Factually incorrect content (inaccuracies and fabricated sources)
- Opacity (the black box problem)
- Opacity (industry opacity)
- Opacity (industry opacity)