MIT AI Risk Repository · Risk Category · 55.05.00
AI leads to humans losing control of the future
Description
"The values that steer humanity’s future: humanity gaining more control over the future due to developments in AI, or losing our potential for gaining control, both seem possible. Much will depend on our ability to solve the alignment problem, who develops powerful AI first, and what they use it for. These long-term impacts of AI could be hugely important but are currently under-explored. We’ve attempted to structure some of the discussion and stimulate more research, by reviewing existing arguments and highlighting open questions. While there are many ways AI could in theory enable a flourish
From 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), as extracted by the MIT AI Risk Repository (CC BY 4.0).
Classification
- Causal entity
- Human
- Intent
- Unintentional
- Timing
- Other
Subdomain definition: AI systems acting in conflict with human goals or values, especially the goals of designers or users, or ethical standards. These misaligned behaviors may be introduced by humans during design and development, such as through reward hacking and goal misgeneralisation, or may result from AI using dangerous capabilities such as manipulation, deception, situational awareness to seek power, self-proliferate, or achieve other goals.
Real-world incidents in this subdomain
- Reinforcement Learning Reward Functions in Video Games
- Predictive Policing Program by Florida Sheriff’s Office Allegedly Violated Residents’ Rights and Targeted Children of Vulnerable Groups
- Image Classification of Battle Tanks
How other frameworks describe this risk
Other entries from Clarke2023
- Risks from accelerating scientific progress
- Eased development of technologies that make a global catastrophe more likely
- Eased development of technologies that make a global catastrophe more likely
- Faster scientific progress makes it harder for governance to keep pace with development
- Faster scientific progress makes it harder for governance to keep pace with development
- Worsened conflict
- AI enables development of weapons of mass destruction
- AI enables automation of military decision-making
- AI-induced strategic instability
- Resource conflicts driven by AI development
- Increased power concentration and inequality
- Unequal distribution of harms and benefits