{"attribution":{"source":"MIT AI Risk Repository, Domain Taxonomy of AI Risks v1 (MIT AI Risk Initiative)","license":"CC BY 4.0","license_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","citation":"Slattery, P., Saeri, A. K., Grundy, E. A. C., Graham, J., Noetel, M., Uuk, R., Dao, J., Pour, S., Casper, S., & Thompson, N. (2025). The AI Risk Repository: A comprehensive meta-review, database, and taxonomy of risks from artificial intelligence. arXiv:2408.12622."},"exported_at":"2026-09-11"}
{"rows":[{"ev_id":"11.01.00","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Category","risk_category":"Representational Harms","risk_subcategory":null,"description":"\"beliefs about different social groups that reproduce unjust societal hierarchies\"","entity":"Other","intent":"Unintentional","timing":"Post-deployment","domain":1,"subdomain":"1.1"},{"ev_id":"11.01.01","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Sub-Category","risk_category":"Representational Harms","risk_subcategory":"Stereotyping social groups","description":"Stereotyping in an algorithmic system refers to how the system’s outputs reflect “beliefs about the characteristics, attributes, and behaviors of members of certain groups....and about how and why certain attributes go together\"","entity":"AI","intent":"Unintentional","timing":"Post-deployment","domain":1,"subdomain":"1.1"},{"ev_id":"11.01.02","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Sub-Category","risk_category":"Representational Harms","risk_subcategory":"Demeaning social groups","description":"Demeaning of social groups to occur when they are when they are “cast as being lower status and less deserving of respect\"... discourses, images, and language used to marginalize or oppress a social group... Controlling images include forms of human-animal confusion in image tagging systems","entity":"AI","intent":"Unintentional","timing":"Post-deployment","domain":1,"subdomain":"1.1"},{"ev_id":"11.01.03","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Sub-Category","risk_category":"Representational Harms","risk_subcategory":"Erasing social groups","description":"people, attributes, or artifacts associated with specific social groups are systematically absent or under-represented... Design choices [143] and training data [212] influence which people\nand experiences are legible to an algorithmic system","entity":"Human","intent":"Unintentional","timing":"Other","domain":1,"subdomain":"1.3"},{"ev_id":"11.01.04","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Sub-Category","risk_category":"Representational Harms","risk_subcategory":"Alienating social groups","description":"when an image tagging system does not acknowledge the relevance of someone’s membership in a specific social group to what is depicted in one or more images","entity":"AI","intent":"Unintentional","timing":"Post-deployment","domain":1,"subdomain":"1.1"},{"ev_id":"11.01.05","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Sub-Category","risk_category":"Representational Harms","risk_subcategory":"Denying people the opportunity to self-identify","description":"complex and non-traditional ways in which humans are represented and classified automatically, and often at the cost of autonomy loss... such as categorizing someone who identifies as non-binary into a gendered category they do not belong ... undermines people’s ability to disclose aspects of their identity on their own terms","entity":"AI","intent":"Unintentional","timing":"Post-deployment","domain":1,"subdomain":"1.1"},{"ev_id":"11.01.06","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Sub-Category","risk_category":"Representational Harms","risk_subcategory":"Reifying essentialist categories","description":"algorithmic systems that reify essentialist social categories can be understood as when systems that classify a person’s membership in a social group based on narrow, socially constructed criteria that reinforce perceptions of human difference as inherent, static and seemingly natural... especially likely when ML models or human raters classify a person’s attributes – for instance, their gender, race, or sexual orientation – by making assumptions based on their physical appearance","entity":"AI","intent":"Unintentional","timing":"Post-deployment","domain":1,"subdomain":"1.1"},{"ev_id":"11.02.00","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Category","risk_category":"Allocative Harms","risk_subcategory":null,"description":"\"These harms occur when a system withholds information, opportunities, or resources [22] from historically marginalized groups in domains that affect material well-being [146], such as housing [47], employment [201], social services [15, 201], finance [117], education [119], and healthcare [158].\"","entity":"AI","intent":"Unintentional","timing":"Post-deployment","domain":1,"subdomain":"1.1"},{"ev_id":"11.02.01","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Sub-Category","risk_category":"Allocative Harms","risk_subcategory":"Opportunity loss","description":"Opportunity loss occurs when algorithmic systems enable disparate access to information and resources needed to equitably participate in society, including the withholding of housing through targeting ads based on race [10] and social services along lines of class [84]","entity":"AI","intent":"Unintentional","timing":"Post-deployment","domain":1,"subdomain":"1.1"},{"ev_id":"11.02.02","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Sub-Category","risk_category":"Allocative Harms","risk_subcategory":"Economic loss","description":"Financial harms [52, 160] co-produced through algorithmic systems, especially as they relate to lived experiences of poverty and economic inequality... demonetization algorithms that parse content titles, metadata, and text, and it may penalize words with multiple meanings [51, 81], disproportionately impacting queer, trans, and creators of color [81]. Differential pricing algorithms, where people are systematically shown different prices for the same products, also leads to economic loss [55]. These algorithms may be especially sensitive to feedback loops from existing inequities related to e","entity":"AI","intent":"Unintentional","timing":"Post-deployment","domain":1,"subdomain":"1.1"},{"ev_id":"11.03.00","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Category","risk_category":"Quality-of-Service Harms","risk_subcategory":null,"description":"\"These harms occur when algorithmic systems disproportionately underperform for certain groups of people along social categories of difference such as disability, ethnicity, gender identity, and race.\"","entity":"AI","intent":"Unintentional","timing":"Post-deployment","domain":1,"subdomain":"1.3"},{"ev_id":"11.03.01","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Sub-Category","risk_category":"Quality-of-Service Harms","risk_subcategory":"Alienation","description":"Alienation is the specific self-estrangement experienced at the time of technology use, typically surfaced through interaction with systems that under-perform for marginalized individuals","entity":"Other","intent":"Unintentional","timing":"Post-deployment","domain":1,"subdomain":"1.3"},{"ev_id":"11.03.02","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Sub-Category","risk_category":"Quality-of-Service Harms","risk_subcategory":"Increased labor","description":"increased burden (e.g., time spent) or effort required by members of certain social groups to make systems or products work as well for them as others","entity":"Other","intent":"Unintentional","timing":"Post-deployment","domain":1,"subdomain":"1.3"},{"ev_id":"11.03.03","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Sub-Category","risk_category":"Quality-of-Service Harms","risk_subcategory":"Service/benefit loss","description":"degraded or total loss of benefits of using algorithmic systems with inequitable system performance based on identity","entity":"AI","intent":"Unintentional","timing":"Post-deployment","domain":1,"subdomain":"1.3"},{"ev_id":"11.04.00","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Category","risk_category":"Interpersonal Harms","risk_subcategory":null,"description":"Interpersonal harms capture instances when algorithmic systems adversely shape relations between people or communities.","entity":"Other","intent":"Other","timing":"Post-deployment","domain":5,"subdomain":"5.2"},{"ev_id":"11.04.01","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Sub-Category","risk_category":"Interpersonal Harms","risk_subcategory":"Loss of agency/control","description":"Loss of agency occurs when the use [123, 137] or abuse [142] of algorithmic systems reduces autonomy. One dimension of agency loss is algorithmic profiling [138], through which people are subject to social sorting and discriminatory outcomes to access basic services... presentation of content may lead to “algorithmically informed identity change. . . including [promotion of] harmful person identities (e.g., interests in white supremacy, disordered eating, etc.).” Similarly, for content creators, desire to maintain visibility or prevent shadow banning, may lead to increased conforming of conten","entity":"Other","intent":"Other","timing":"Post-deployment","domain":5,"subdomain":"5.2"},{"ev_id":"11.04.02","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Sub-Category","risk_category":"Interpersonal Harms","risk_subcategory":"Technology-facilitated violence","description":"Technology-facilitated violence occurs when algorithmic features enable use of a system for harassment and violence [2, 16, 44, 80, 108], including creation of non-consensual sexual imagery in generative AI... other facets of technology-facilitated violence, include doxxing [79], trolling [14], cyberstalking [14], cyberbullying [14, 98, 204], monitoring and control [44], and online harassment and intimidation [98, 192, 199, 226], under the broader banner of online toxicity","entity":"Human","intent":"Intentional","timing":"Post-deployment","domain":4,"subdomain":"4.3"},{"ev_id":"11.04.03","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Sub-Category","risk_category":"Interpersonal Harms","risk_subcategory":"Diminished health & well-being","description":"algorithmic behavioral exploitation [18, 209], emotional manipulation [202] whereby algorithmic designs exploit user behavior, safety failures involving algorithms (e.g., collisions) [67], and when systems make incorrect health inferences","entity":"AI","intent":"Other","timing":"Post-deployment","domain":5,"subdomain":"5.1"},{"ev_id":"11.04.04","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Sub-Category","risk_category":"Interpersonal Harms","risk_subcategory":"Privacy violations","description":"Privacy violation occurs when algorithmic systems diminish privacy, such as enabling the undesirable flow of private information [180], instilling the feeling of being watched or surveilled [181], and the collection of data without explicit and informed consent... privacy violations may arise from algorithmic systems making predictive inference beyond what users openly disclose [222] or when data collected and algorithmic inferences made about people in one context is applied to another without the person’s knowledge or consent through big data flows","entity":"AI","intent":"Other","timing":"Post-deployment","domain":2,"subdomain":"2.1"},{"ev_id":"11.05.00","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Category","risk_category":"Societal System Harms","risk_subcategory":null,"description":"\"Social system or societal harms reflect the adverse\nmacro-level effects of new and reconfigurable algorithmic systems,\nsuch as systematizing bias and inequality [84] and accelerating the scale of harm [137]\"","entity":"AI","intent":"Unintentional","timing":"Post-deployment","domain":6,"subdomain":"6.0"},{"ev_id":"11.05.01","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Sub-Category","risk_category":"Societal System Harms","risk_subcategory":"Information harms","description":"information-based harms capture concerns of misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation. Algorithmic systems, especially generative models and recommender, systems can lead to these information harms","entity":"Other","intent":"Unintentional","timing":"Post-deployment","domain":3,"subdomain":"3.1"},{"ev_id":"11.05.02","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Sub-Category","risk_category":"Societal System Harms","risk_subcategory":"Cultural harms","description":"Cultural harm has been described as the development or use of algorithmic systems that affects cultural stability and safety, such as “loss of communication means, loss of cultural property, and harm to social values”","entity":"AI","intent":"Unintentional","timing":"Post-deployment","domain":5,"subdomain":"5.2"},{"ev_id":"11.05.03","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Sub-Category","risk_category":"Societal System Harms","risk_subcategory":"Civic and political harms","description":"Political harms emerge when “people are disenfranchised and deprived of appropriate political power and influence” [186, p. 162]. These harms focus on the domain of government, and focus on how algorithmic systems govern through individualized nudges or micro-directives [187], that may destabilize governance systems, erode human rights, be used as weapons of war [188], and enact surveillant regimes that disproportionately target and harm people of color","entity":"Other","intent":"Intentional","timing":"Post-deployment","domain":4,"subdomain":"4.1"},{"ev_id":"11.05.04","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Sub-Category","risk_category":"Societal System Harms","risk_subcategory":"Labor & material/Macro-socio economic harms","description":"Algorithmic systems can increase “power imbalances in socio-economic relations” at the societal level [4, 137, p. 182], including through exacerbating digital divides and entrenching systemic inequalities [114, 230]. The development of algorithmic systems may tap into and foster forms of labor exploitation [77, 148], such as unethical data collection, worsening worker conditions [26], or lead to technological unemployment [52], such as deskilling or devaluing human labor [170]... when algorithmic financial systems fail at scale, these can lead to “flash crashes” and other adverse incidents wit","entity":"Other","intent":"Other","timing":"Post-deployment","domain":6,"subdomain":"6.1"},{"ev_id":"11.05.05","quick_ref":"Shelby2023","paper_title":"Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction","level":"Risk Sub-Category","risk_category":"Societal System Harms","risk_subcategory":"Environmental harms","description":"depletion or contamination of natural resources, and damage to built environments... that may occur throughout the lifecycle of digital technologies [170, 237] from “crale (mining) to usage (consumption) to grave (waste)”","entity":"AI","intent":"Unintentional","timing":"Post-deployment","domain":6,"subdomain":"6.6"}]}