MIT AI Risk Repository
Browse AI risks
84 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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"General purpose AI models could exacerbate existing tactics for political destabilisation, such as disinformation campaigns, and surveillance efforts if misused for political motivations. The technological advancements in text and media generation of general purpose AI models could refine disinformation164 attempts to shape and polarise public opinion or influence important political events.165 The improved automated processing of text, audio, image, and video could be used for surveillance measures and exacerbate human right violations and repression of political oppositions."
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"OpenAI’s GPT-3 was designed to be dicult to extract personal information from, including for example public gures’ dates of birth. Even so, malicious uses of AI continue to encroach on privacy, as exemplied by China’s “Sharp Eye” automated surveillance system [551] and automated cyberattacks on personal data [354]. A more drastic form of AI-enabled surveillance could be on the way in the form of nonsurgical decoding of thoughts [54]—a technique which is reportedly already used by some police forces [398]."
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55.03.03 · Risk Sub-Category
Increased power concentration and inequality
Developments in AI enable actors to undermine democratic processes
"Developments in AI are giving companies and governments more control over individuals’ lives than ever before, and may possibly be used to undermine democratic processes. We are already seeing how the collection of large amounts of personal data can be used to surveil and influence populations, for example the use of facial recognition technology to surveil Uighur and other minority populations in China [66]. Further advances in language modelling could also be used to develop tools that can effectively persuade people of certain claims [42]."
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55.04.02 · Risk Sub-Category
Worsened epistemic processes for society
AI is used to scale up production of false and misleading information
"At the same time, we are seeing how AI can be used to scale up the production of convincing yet false or misleading information online (e.g. via image, audio, and text synthesis models like BigGAN [6] and GPT-3 [7])."
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55.04.03 · Risk Sub-Category
Worsened epistemic processes for society
AI's persuasive capabilities are misused to gain influence and promote harmful ideologies
"As AI capabilities advance, they may be used to develop sophisticated persuasion tools, such as those that tailor their communication to specific users to persuade them of certain claims [42]. While these tools could be used for social good— such as New York Times’ chatbot that helps users to persuade people to get vaccinated against Covid-19 [27]—there are also many ways they could be misused by self-interested groups to gain influence and/or to promote harmful ideologies."
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"Coercion/manipulation - Use of a technology system to covertly alter user beliefs and behaviour using nudging, dark patterns and/or other opaque techniques, resulting in potential erosion of privacy, addiction, anxiety/distress, etc."
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58.08.00 · Risk Category
"Political and Economic - Manipulation of political beliefs, damage to political institutions and the effective delivery of government services."
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"Electoral interference - Generation of false or misleading information that can interrupt or mislead voters and/or undermine trust in electoral processes."
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"Political manipulation - Use or misuse of personal data to target individuals’ interests, personalities and vulnerabilities with tailored political messages via micro-advertising or deepfakes/synthetic media."
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"Malicious actors can use general- purpose AI to generate fake content such as text, images, or videos, for attempts to manipulate public opinion. Researchers believe that if successful, such attempts could have several harmful consequences."
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"Large-scale influence on communication and information systems, and epistemic processes more generally."
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"AI could be used to develop sophisticated tools to manipulate and persuade individuals."
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61.02.04 · Risk Sub-Category
Sources of systemic risks from general-purpose AI
Advertising-driven models
"AI models and systems underpin the advertising approaches that drive much of the internet, potentially influencing societal behavior."
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61.02.05 · Risk Sub-Category
Sources of systemic risks from general-purpose AI
AI in totalitarian regimes
"AI-based surveillance and manipulation could be used to maintain global totalitarian regimes."
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61.02.34 · Risk Sub-Category
Sources of systemic risks from general-purpose AI
Limitations in model generative accuracy
"AI-generated deepfakes can create convincingly realistic but entirely fabricated information."
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61.02.43 · Risk Sub-Category
Sources of systemic risks from general-purpose AI
Surveillance capabilities
"AI models and systems may grant governments or corporations increased monitoring over individuals."
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61.02.49 · Risk Sub-Category
Sources of systemic risks from general-purpose AI
Widespread use of persuasion tools
"Widespread use of AI-powered persuasion tools could lead to systemic harm"
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62.31.03#1 · Risk Sub-Category
Impacts of AI (Societal Impacts)
Automatically generating disinformation at scale
"Disinformation (in various modalities: text, audio, images, video, etc.) can be generated with minimal human oversight and effort. Disinformation tools are relatively cheap and their technology is widely available. Such deployments can be particularly widespread in sensitive political contexts."
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62.31.05 · Risk Sub-Category
Impacts of AI (Societal Impacts)
Generative AI use in political influence campaigns
"GPAI tools can be used in automation and scaling of influence campaigns [178]. Public opinion may be manipulated by targeted misleading or manipulative information. This can lead to rising political polarization and diminishing trust in public institutions."
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62.31.10 · Risk Sub-Category
Impacts of AI (Societal Impacts)
Misuse for surveillance and population control
"AI tools can be misused by human or institutional actors for monitoring, control- ling, or suppressing individuals [178]. Massive data collection and automated analysis are often conducted, and AI tools can further exacerbate such practices."
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62.31.12 · Risk Sub-Category
Impacts of AI (Societal Impacts)
Diminishing societal trust due to disinformation or manipulation
"The use of GPAIs may contribute to the proliferation of either deliberate dis- information or unintended misinformation can severely erode trust in public figures and democratic institutions. This diminishing trust can extend to other forms of media, making the public less informed."
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"Automatic generation of disinformation can be personalized to target specific groups or individuals. Such attacks can be more effective in achieving their goals, and their costs can be significantly reduced when using GPAIs."
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64.01.03 · Risk Sub-Category
Misuse tactics that exploit GenAI capabilities (Realistic depiction of human likeness)
Sockpuppeting
"Create synthetic online personas or accounts"
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64.02.01 · Risk Sub-Category
Misuse tactics that exploit GenAI capabilities (Realistic depictions of non-humans)
Falisification
"Fabricate or falsely represent evidence, incl. reports, IDs, documents"
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"Generative AI models might be used to intentionally create misleading or false information to deceive or influence a targeted audience."
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"Erosion of trust in public institutions and weakened checks and balances due to mis/disinformation, influence operations, or real or perceived misuse of generative AI"
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"Use of a technology system to covertly alter user beliefs and behaviour using nudging, dark patterns and/or other opaque techniques"
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"In addition to unintentional degradation of the information environment (discussed in the section on Societal Harms above), frontier AI can be misused to deliberately spread false information to create disruption, persuade people on political issues, or cause other forms of harm or damage."
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"AI systems can be gravely misused to distort public perception and compromise social stability through the generation of synthetic content (e.g., deepfakes, sophisticated fake news) and the strategic manipulation of digital platforms with large user bases to disseminate or precisely target misleading information or ideologies."
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73.03.03 · Risk Sub-Category
Dual-Use Capabilities Enable Malicious Use and Misuse of LLMs
Surveillance and Censorship
"Content moderation has emerged as one of the key use-cases of LLMs (Weng et al., 2023), indicating the potential of LLMs for surveillance and censorship as well (Edwards, 2023). Surveillance and censorship are one of the primary tools employed by governments with dictatorial tendencies to suppress opposing political and social voices. These censorship measures, however, are often quite crude and can be escaped with little ingenuity...However, LLMs could enable significantly more sophisticated surveillance and censorship operations at scale (Feldstein, 2019). Multimodal-LLMs or LLMs combined w
Informational only, not legal advice. Verify every claim against the linked official sources and consult qualified counsel before acting.