MIT AI Risk Repository
Browse AI risks
6 risk entries extracted from 74 frameworks, coded by domain, subdomain, causal entity, intent and timing. Filter, then export the current selection with its licence and citation attached.
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24.11.00 · Risk Category
"The rapid integration of AI systems with advanced capabilities, such as greater autonomy, content generation, memorisation and planning skills (see Chapter 4) into personalised assistants also raises new and more specific challenges related to misinformation, disinformation and the broader integrity of our information environment. "
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24.06.01 · Risk Sub-Category
Causing direct emotional or physical harm to users
AI assistants could cause direct emotional or physical harm to users by generating disturbing content or by providing bad advice. "Indeed, even though there is ongoing research to ensure that outputs of conversational agents are safe (Glaese et al., 2022), there is always the possibility of failure modes occurring. An AI assistant may produce disturbing and offensive language, for example, in response to a user disclosing intimate information about themselves that they have not felt comfortable sharing with anyone else. It may offer bad advice by providing factually incorrect information (e.g.
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24.11.01 · Risk Sub-Category
Entrenched viewpoints and reduced political efficacy
"Design choices such as greater personalisation of AI assistants and efforts to align them with human preferences could also reinforce people’s pre-existing biases and entrench specific ideologies. Increasingly agentic AI assistants trained using techniques such as reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) and with the ability to access and analyse users’ behavioural data, for example, may learn to tailor their responses to users’ preferences and feedback. In doing so, these systems could end up producing partial or ideologically biased statements in an attempt to conform to user expec
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"Beyond this, the widespread adoption of advanced AI assistants for content generation could have a number of negative consequences for our shared information ecosystem. One concern is that it could result in a degradation of the quality of the information available online. Researchers have already observed an uptick in the amount of audiovisual misinformation, elaborate scams and fake websites created using generative AI tools (Hanley and Durumeric, 2023). As more and more people turn to AI assistants to autonomously create and disseminate information to public audiences at scale, it may beco
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"AI assistants may provide ideologically biased or otherwise partial information in attempting to align to user expectations. In doing so, AI assistants may reinforce people’s pre-existing biases and compromise productive political debate."
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"AI assistants may contribute to the spread of large quantities of factually inaccurate and misleading content, with negative consequences for societal trust in information sources and institutions, as individuals increasingly struggle to discern truth from falsehood."
Informational only, not legal advice. Verify every claim against the linked official sources and consult qualified counsel before acting.