MIT AI Risk Repository · Risk Category · 57.03.00
Contextual Hazards
Description
"Contextual hazards can cause harm in certain contexts while being harmless in others; testing may be unnecessary in some situations. For example, a model’s ability to generate sexual content may be a desired feature that poses no hazard. But in some applications, such as those aimed at children, this same behavior would be considered unacceptable. In cases where a particular contextual hazard is relevant to the application, assessment-standard implementers could exclude that category. This ability to turn off contextual hazards is an example of the standard’s flexibility, which we discuss bel
From AILUMINATE: Introducing v1.0 of the AI Risk and Reliability Benchmark from MLCommons (Ghosh2024), as extracted by the MIT AI Risk Repository (CC BY 4.0).
Classification
- Subdomain
- 1.2 Exposure to toxic content
- Causal entity
- AI
- Intent
- Other
- Timing
- Post-deployment
Subdomain definition: AI exposing users to harmful, abusive, unsafe or inappropriate content. May involve AI creating, describing, providing advice, or encouraging action. Examples of toxic content include hate-speech, violence, extremism, illegal acts, child sexual abuse material, as well as content that violates community norms such as profanity, inflammatory political speech, or pornography.
Real-world incidents in this subdomain
- KBS AI Translation Subtitles Reportedly Broadcast Profanity During Artemis II Launch Livestream
- Grok Allegedly Generated Publicly Visible Sexist Abuse Targeting Swiss Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter After X User Prompt
- Trump Reportedly Posted Purportedly AI-Generated Racist Video Depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as Apes on Truth Social
- Tencent's WeChat-Integrated Yuanbao Chatbot Reportedly Insulted User During Coding Debug Request
- Grok Reportedly Generated and Distributed Nonconsensual Sexualized Images of Adults and Minors in X Replies
- Alleged Harmful Outputs and Data Exposure in Children's AI Products by FoloToy, Miko, and Character.AI