MIT AI Risk Repository · Risk Sub-Category · 58.08.05
Institutional trust loss
Category: Political and Economic
Description
"Institutional trust loss - Erosion of trust in public institutions and weakened checks and balances due to mis/disinformation, influence operations, over-dependence on technology, etc."
From A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024), as extracted by the MIT AI Risk Repository (CC BY 4.0).
Classification
- Domain
- 3. Misinformation
- Causal entity
- Other
- 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
- Widespread use of persuasive tools contributes to splintered epistemic communities
- Worsened epistemic processes for society
- AI contributes to increased online polarisation
- Reduced decision-making capacity as a result of decreased trust in information
- Degradation of the information environment
- Clickbait and feeding the surveillance advertising ecosystem
- Eroding trust and undermining shared knowledge
- Entrenching specific ideologies
Other entries from Abercrombie2024
- Autonomy
- Autonomy/agency loss
- Impersonation/identity theft
- IP/copyright loss
- Personality rights loss
- Physical
- Bodily Injury
- Loss of Life
- Personal Health Deterioration
- Property Damage
- "Psychological - Direct or indirect impairment of the emotional and psychological mental health of an individual, organisation, or society."
- Addiction