MIT AI Risk Repository · Risk Sub-Category · 67.04.01
Humans might increasingly hand over control to misaligned AI systems
Category: Loss of control
Description
"Organisations around the world are already deploying misaligned AI systems that are causing harm in unexpected ways.250 Recommendation algorithms increase the consumption of extremist content.251 Medical algorithms have been known to misdiagnose US patients,252 and recommend incorrect prescriptions.253 Still, we hand over more control to them, often because they are still as - or more - effective than human decision making, or because they are cheaper."
From Capabilities and Risks from Frontier AI (DSIT2023), as extracted by the MIT AI Risk Repository (CC BY 4.0).
Classification
- Causal entity
- Human
- Intent
- Unintentional
- Timing
- Other
Subdomain definition: Humans delegating key decisions to AI systems, or AI systems making decisions that diminish human control and autonomy, potentially leading to humans feeling disempowered, losing the ability to shape a fulfilling life trajectory or becoming cognitively enfeebled.
Real-world incidents in this subdomain
- DisMech AI Curation Agent Reportedly Completed GitHub Issue Intended as New Contributor's Learning Task
- Waymo Driverless Taxi Allegedly Stalled During Pedestrian Harassment Incident in San Francisco
- California Police Turned on Music to Allegedly Trigger Instagram’s DCMA to Avoid Being Live-Streamed
- Hawaii Police Deployed Robot Dog to Patrol a Homeless Encampment
How other frameworks describe this risk
Other entries from DSIT2023
- Societal harms
- Degradation of the information environment
- Degradation of the information environment
- Degradation of the information environment
- Degradation of the information environment
- Degradation of the information environment
- Labour market disruption
- Labour market disruption
- Bias, Fairness and Representational Harms
- Bias, Fairness and Representational Harms
- Bias, Fairness and Representational Harms
- Bias, Fairness and Representational Harms