MIT AI Risk Repository
Browse AI risks
2,500 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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24.06.04 · Risk Sub-Category
Generating material dependence without adequate commitment to user needs
"In addition to emotional dependence, user–AI assistant relationships may give rise to material dependence if the relationships are not just emotionally difficult but also materially costly to exit. For example, a visually impaired user may decide not to register for a healthcare assistance programme to support navigation in cities on the grounds that their AI assistant can perform the relevant navigation functions and will continue to operate into the future. Cases like these may be ethically problematic if the user’s dependence on the AI assistant, to fulfil certain needs in their lives, is
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"Collective action problems are ubiquitous in our society (Olson Jr, 1965). They possess an incentive structure in which society is best served if everyone cooperates, but where an individual can achieve personal gain by choosing to defect while others cooperate. The way we resolve these problems at many scales is highly complex and dependent on a deep understanding of the intricate web of social interactions that forms our culture and imprints on our individual identities and behaviours (Ostrom, 2010). Some collective action problems can be resolved by codifying a law, for instance the social
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"The apparent convenience and powerfulness of ChatGPT could result in overreliance by its users, making them trust the answers provided by ChatGPT. Compared with traditional search engines that provide multiple information sources for users to make personal judgments and selections, ChatGPT generates specific answers for each prompt. Although utilizing ChatGPT has the advantage of increasing efficiency by saving time and effort, users could get into the habit of adopting the answers without rationalization or verification. Over-reliance on generative AI technology can impede skills such as cre
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35.02.00 · Risk Category
As AI systems encroach on human-level intelligence, more and more aspects of human labor will become faster and cheaper to accomplish with AI. As the world accelerates, organizations may voluntarily cede control to AI systems in order to keep up. This may cause humans to become economically irrelevant, and once AI automates aspects of many industries, it may be hard for displaced humans to reenter them
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38.04.00 · Risk Category
"Several participants mentioned how AI systems could influence human agency and decision-making. They emphasized the need of striking a balance between using the benefits of AI and protecting human autonomy and control. The increasing integration of AI systems into various aspects of our lives, which can have a significant impact on human agency and decision-making, has raised ethical concerns about AI and human–AI interaction. As AI systems advance, they will be able to influence, if not completely replace, IJOES human decision-making in some fields, prompting concerns about the loss of human
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45.02.12 · Risk Sub-Category
Safety risks in AI Applications
Ethical Risks (Risks of challenging traditional social order)
"The development and application of AI may lead to tremendous changes in production tools and relations, accelerating the reconstruction of traditional industry modes, transforming traditional views on employment, fertility, and education, and bringing challenges to the stable performance of traditional social order."
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50.01.05 · Risk Sub-Category
Operational misuses (Autonomous unsafe operation of systems)
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"Although the implementation of general purpose AI models as automation tools could be a major opportunity, overly rapid adoption of this technology at scale might outpace the ability of society to adapt effectively. This could lead to a variety of disruptions, including challenges in the labour market, the education system and public discourse, and various mental health concerns."
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53.03.02 · Risk Sub-Category
Gradual, irretrievable ceding of human power over the future to AI systems
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"One concern here is humans not remaining in the loop for some military decisions, creating the possibility of unintentional escalation because of: • Automated tactical decision-making, by ‘in-theatre’ AI systems (e.g. border patrol systems start accidentally firing on one another), leading to either: tactical-level war crimes,11 or strategic-level decisions to initiate conflict or escalate to a higher level of intensity—for example, countervalue (e.g. city-) targeting, or going nuclear [62]. • Automated strategic decision-making, by ‘out-of-theatre’ AI systems—for example, conflict prediction
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"For example, AI could undermine nuclear strategic stability by making it easier to discover and destroy previously secure nuclear launch facilities [30, 46, 49]. AI may also offer more extreme first-strike advantages or novel destructive capabilities that could disrupt deterrence, such as cyber capabilities being used to knock out opponents’ nuclear command and control [15, 29]. The use of AI capabilities may make it less clear where attacks originate from, making it easier for aggressors to obfuscate an attack, and therefore reducing the costs of initiating one. By making it more difficult t
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56.18.00 · Risk Category
"As AI capability increases, humans grant AI more control over critical systems and eventually become irreversibly dependent on systems they don’t fully understand. Failure and unintended outcomes cannot be controlled."
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"Autonomy - Loss of or restrictions to the ability or rights of an individual, group or entity to make decisions and control their identity and/or output."
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"Autonomy/agency loss - Loss of an individual, group or organisation’s ability to make informed decisions or pursue goals."
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"Personality rights loss - Loss of or restrictions to the rights of an individual to control the commercial use of their identity, such as name, image, likeness, or other unequivocal identifiers."
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"Profound negative long-term changes to social structures, cultural norms, and human relationships that may be difficult or impossible to reverse."
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61.02.35 · Risk Sub-Category
Sources of systemic risks from general-purpose AI
Limited human oversight in decisions
"As AI models and systems gain autonomy, the ability of humans to oversee and intervene in decision-making processes diminishes."
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61.02.39 · Risk Sub-Category
Sources of systemic risks from general-purpose AI
Personal decision automation capabilities
"AI models and systems could decide or influence important personal decisions."
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62.31.02#1 · Risk Sub-Category
Impacts of AI (Societal Impacts)
Overreliance on AI system undermining user autonomy
"AI systems can undermine human autonomy, if they allow for habitually trusting the AI’s suggestions without sufficient exercising of human agency. Over time, a user may develop unjustified trust in or dependence on the system, or rely on its advice for tasks outside the system’s domain of expertise [205, 42]. In particular, less confident users (or users in emotional distress) can be more prone to “overtrust” a system [219]."
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62.36.06 · Risk Sub-Category
Long-term effects of AI model biases on user judgment
"The initial user exposure to model biases can have a lasting impact beyond the initial interaction with the model. Users who encounter biases in AI models can be affected by and continue to exhibit previously encountered biases in their decision-making, even after they stop using the models [207]."
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"AI might affect the individuals’ ability to make choices and act independently in their best interests."
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"Loss of or restrictions to the ability or rights of an individual, group or entity to make decisions and control their identity and/or output due to the use of misuse of a technology system or set of systems"
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"Loss of an individual, group or organisation’s ability to make informed decisions or pursue goals"
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"Emotional or material dependence on technology or a technology system"
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"Humans may increasingly hand over control of important decisions to AI systems, due to economic and geopolitical incentives. Some experts are concerned that future advanced AI systems will seek to increase their own influence and reduce human control, with potentially catastrophic consequences - although this is contested."
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67.04.01 · Risk Sub-Category
Humans might increasingly hand over control to misaligned AI systems
"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."
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68.04.00 · Risk Category
"Gradual or accumulative loss of control risks can be described as risks resulting from the accumulation of less severe disruptions that gradually weakens systemic resilience until a critical event triggers a catastrophe [12], [127]."
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68.04.00a · Additional evidence
"Risk dimensions • Intent: Unintentional • Competency: Variable • Entity: Variable • Polarity: Multi-agent • Linearity: Non-linear • Reach: Internalized • Order: Variable"
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72.02.00 · Risk Category
"Risks associated with scenarios in which one or more general-purpose AI systems come to operate outside of anyone's control, with no clear path to regaining control. This includes both passive loss of control (gradual reduction in human oversight) and active loss of control (AI systems actively undermining human control)"
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"...where humans gradually stop exercising meaningful oversight due to automation bias, the AI systems' inherent complexity, or competitive pressures"
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07.04.00 · Risk Category
"Structural risks are concerned with how AI technologies "shape and are shaped by the environments in which they are developed and deployed""
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11.05.00 · Risk Category
"Social system or societal harms reflect the adverse macro-level effects of new and reconfigurable algorithmic systems, such as systematizing bias and inequality [84] and accelerating the scale of harm [137]"
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12.03.00 · Risk Category
"Addresses AI's broader societal effects, including labor displacement, mental health impacts, and issues from manipulative technologies like deepfakes. Additionally, it considers AI's environmental footprint, balancing resource strain and training-related carbon emissions against AI's potential to help address environmental problems."
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15.02.00 · Risk Category
"Second-order risks result from the consequences of first-order risks and relate to the risks resulting from an ML system interacting with the real world, such as risks to human rights, the organization, and the natural environment."
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The risk of financial and/or reputational damage to the organization building or using the ML system.
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16.06.00 · Risk Category
"LMs create some risks that recur with different types of AI and other advanced technologies making these risks ever more pressing. Environmental concerns arise from the large amount of energy required to train and operate large-scale models. Risks of LMs furthering social inequities emerge from the uneven distribution of risk and benefits of automation, loss of high-quality and safe employment, and environmental harm. Many of these risks are more indirect than the harms analysed in previous sections and will depend on various commercial, economic and social factors, making the specific impact
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17.06.00 · Risk Category
"Harms that arise from environmental or downstream economic impacts of the language model"
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18.06.00 · Risk Category
"AI systems amplifying existing inequalities or creating negative impacts on employment, innovation, and the environment"
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47.04.00 · Risk Category
"Beyond the risks associated with AI technology and its applications, and the legal challenges arising from its development, it is crucial to consider other long- term issues posed by the deployment of increasingly advanced generative AI models. These risks to society, sometimes referred to as “systemic risks,”537 encompass several key areas: the potential for excessive market concentration, the impacts on employment, environmental consequences, and broader risks to humanity."
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"Loss of freedom of speech/expression - Restrictions to or loss of people’s right to articulate their opin- ions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction."
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58.06.05 · Risk Sub-Category
Human rights and civil liberties
Loss of freedom of assembly/association
"Loss of freedom of assembly/association - Restrictions to or loss of people’s right to come together and collectively express, promote, pursue, and defend their collective or shared ideas, and/or to join an association."
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58.06.06 · Risk Sub-Category
Human rights and civil liberties
Loss of social rights and access to public services
"Loss of social rights and access to public services - Restrictions to or loss of rights to work, social secu- rity, and adequate standard of living, housing, health and education."
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"Loss of right to information - Restrictions to or loss of people’s right to seek, receive and impart information held by public bodies."
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"Loss of right to free elections - Restrictions to or loss of people’s right to participate in free elections at reasonable intervals by secret ballot."
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"Loss of right to liberty and security - Restrictions to or loss of liberty as a result of illegal or arbitrary arrest or false imprisonment."
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"Loss of right to due process - Restrictions to or loss of right to be treated fairly, efficiently and effectively by the administration of justice."
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58.07.00 · Risk Category
"Societal and Cultural - Harms affecting the functioning of societies, communities and economies caused directly or indirectly by the use or misuse technology systems."
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"The erosion of democratic processes and public trust in social/political institutions."
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"Political unrest caused directly or indirectly by the use or misuse of a technology system"
Informational only, not legal advice. Verify every claim against the linked official sources and consult qualified counsel before acting.