MIT AI Risk Repository
Browse AI risks
430 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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"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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"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"
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"The estimated financial costs of training, testing, and deploying generative AI systems can restrict the groups of people able to afford developing and interacting with these systems."
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19.06.04 · Risk Sub-Category
Hard legislation on AI hinders innovation processes and further AI development
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"Governments might pursue intense surveillance and seek to keep AIs in the hands of a trusted minority. This reaction, however, could easily become an overcorrection, paving the way for an entrenched totalitarian regime that would be locked in by the power and capacity of AIs"
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"AI assistants currently tend to perform a limited set of isolated tasks: tools that classify or rank content execute a set of predefined rules or provide constrained suggestions, and chatbots are often encoded with guardrails to limit the set of conversation turns they execute (e.g. Warren, 2023; see Chapter 4). However, an artificial agent that can execute sequences of actions on the user’s behalf – with ‘significant autonomy to plan and execute tasks within the relevant domain’ (see Chapter 2) – offers a greater range of capabilities and depth of use. This raises several distinct access-rel
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31.09.00 · Risk Category
"Major tech companies have also been the dominant players in developing new generative AI systems because training generative AI models requires massive swaths of data, computing power, and technical and financial resources."
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"This group of concerns represents 2% of the sample and highlights two central issues: Western centrality and cultural difference, and unequal participation."
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"The political influence and competitive advantage obtained by having technology."
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47.04.01 · Risk Sub-Category
Environmental, economical, and societal challenges
Concentration of market power (Trend toward market concentration)
"In the generative AI market, barriers to entry are very high. Developers need access to vast volumes of data, computational resources, technical expertise, and capital. Large technology companies with such access are able to exploit economies of scale, economies of scope, and feedback effects (learning effects from user- generated data).542 All this gives them an overwhelming advantage over smaller companies, making competition increasingly challenging for these smaller entities."
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47.04.02 · Risk Sub-Category
Environmental, economical, and societal challenges
Concentration of market power (Negative effects of increased market concentration)
"The concentration of AI assets—encompassing data, hardware, and expertise—within a small group of global tech firms raises many concerns.564 Such a situation may stifle healthy competition, impede innovation, and potentially result in elevated costs for accessing AI technologies. Firms with control over essential resources for developing AI models may restrict access to these resources to prevent competition. For instance, if, in the future, training AI models increasingly relies on proprietary data, smaller organizations lacking access to such data might encounter significant barriers to ent
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"General- purpose AI research and development is currently concentrated in a few Western countries and China. This ‘AI Divide’ is multicausal, but in part related to limited access to computing power in low- income countries. Access to large and expensive quantities of computing power has become a prerequisite for developing advanced general- purpose AI. This has led to a growing dominance of large technology companies in general- purpose AI development. The AI R&D divide often overlaps with existing global socioeconomic disparities, potentially exacerbating them."
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54.04.00 · Risk Category
"Our next problem is the fact that the current AI workforce does not evenly represent world demographics. Men from the US and China, working in the US, for US corporations, are disproportionately highly represented [402, 157, 170, 534]. Realizing the full promise of AI requires that people throughout the world and from all social strata are able to use AI and participate in its design and governance. Solving this problem requires addressing unequal access to AI both within countries and across countries."
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54.04.01 · Risk Sub-Category
Within-country issues: domestic inequality
Demographic diversity of researchers
"The AI research establishment inherits patterns of under-representation that are dominant in most technical elds. In North America, large parts of professional AI research require a Ph.D., yet less than 25% of Ph.D. computer scientists are women, and fewer than 2% are Black or African American [608]. This holds globally and outside the research community: LinkedIn data suggests that only 22% of AI professionals are women [161]. Since the vast majority of AI practitioners work for private companies, limited corporate statistics on gender and racial diversity hinder a full understanding of the
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54.05.00 · Risk Category
"There is an even greater divide between the countries currently leading in AI and those falling behind. While AI is widely considered a national priority, with almost 40% of countries having created an AI strategy [437], the implementation of these strategies depends on scarce resources, including trained STEM talent and computing power. These resources are predictably concentrated: 59% of leading AI researchers currently work in the US, and another 20% in China and Europe [372]. Figure 9 shows post-college migration among AI researchers who have published at one top conference, as of 2019."
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55.03.01 · Risk Sub-Category
Increased power concentration and inequality
Unequal distribution of harms and benefits
"AI-driven industries seem likely to tend towards monopoly and could result in huge economic gains for a few actors: there seems to be a feedback loop whereby actors with access to more AI-relevant resources (e.g., data, computing power, talent) are able to build more effective digital products and services, claim a greater market share, and therefore be well-positioned to amass more of the relevant resources [14, 39, 45]. Similarly, wealthier countries able to invest more in AI development are likely to reap economic benefits more quickly than developing economies, potentially widening the ga
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56.17.00 · Risk Category
"Intense competition leads to one company gaining a technical edge, exploiting this to the point its model controls, or is the basis for other models controlling, multiple key systems. Lack of safety, controllability, and misuse cause these systems to fail in unexpected ways."
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"Monopolisation - Abuse of market power through the control of prices, thereby limiting competition and creating unfair barriers to entry."
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"Power concentration - Amplification of concentration of economic and/or political wealth and power, potentially resulting in increased inequality and instability."
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"Large companies in countries with strong digital infrastructure lead in general- purpose AI R&D, which could lead to an increase in global inequality and dependencies. For example, in 2023, the majority of notable general- purpose AI models (56%) were developed in the US. This disparity exposes many LMICs to risks of dependency and could exacerbate existing inequalities."
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"Market shares for general- purpose AI tend to be highly concentrated among a few players, which can create vulnerability to systemic failures. The high degree of market concentration can invest a small number of large technology companies with a lot of power over the development and deployment of AI, raising questions about their governance. The widespread use of a few general- purpose AI models can also make the financial, healthcare, and other critical sectors vulnerable to systemic failures if there are issues with one such model."
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61.02.19 · Risk Sub-Category
Sources of systemic risks from general-purpose AI
Dependency on providers
"Excessive reliance on specific AI providers can lead to vulnerabilities due to lack of alternatives or interoperability."
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61.02.50 · Risk Sub-Category
Sources of systemic risks from general-purpose AI
Winner-take-all dynamics
"The competitive nature of AI development could lead to significant eco- nomic and security advantages for a few entities."
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"Over-reliance on a limited number of dominant AI providers could create critical single points of failure across essential services. Market concentration in AI development may lead to scenarios where technical failures, cyber-attacks, or policy decisions by a few companies could simultaneously disrupt healthcare systems, financial services, transportation networks, and communication infrastructure, creating cascading failures across interconnected critical systems."
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"Asymmetric AI development capabilities between nations could exacerbate geopolitical tensions and create new forms of technological dependency. Countries lacking advanced AI capabilities may become increasingly dependent on foreign AI systems for critical functions, while AI-leading nations may gain disproportionate influence over global economic and security systems, potentially destabilizing international cooperation frameworks."
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73.06.00 · Risk Category
"The increasing power and influence of large corporations may make effective governance difficult. There exists a power asymmetry between corporate entities profiting from LLMs and other social groups (e.g. civil society). State-of-the-art LLMs are developed by or in partnership with, some of the world’s largest private tech companies...This poses a risk of governance protocols related to LLMs becoming excessively favorable to tech companies, potentially leading to regulatory capture at the cost of the interests of other societal groups, particularly marginalized communities who have historica
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31.07.00 · Risk Category
Major tech companies have also been the dominant players in developing new generative AI systems because training generative AI models requires massive swaths of data, computing power, and technical and financial resources. Their market dominance has a ripple effect on the labor market, affecting both workers within these companies and those implementing their generative AI products externally. With so much concentrated market power, expertise, and investment resources, these handful of major tech companies employ most of the research and development jobs in the generative AI field. The power
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"This category involves almost 9% of the articles and deals with ethical concerns arising from AI's capacity to interact with humans in the workplace."
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47.04.03 · Risk Sub-Category
Environmental, economical, and societal challenges
Impact on labor markets (job loss and displacement)
"Currently, a significant share of workers (three in five) worry about losing their jobs entirely to AI in the next 10 years—particularly those who already work with AI. Some studies conclude that AI tools (generative and non-generative) will create significant job losses.573 The OECD has found that occupations at highest risk of being lost to automation from AI account for about 27% of employment.5"
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"Labour exploitation - Use of under-paid and/or offshore labour to develop, manage or optimise a technology system."
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"Societal inequality - Increased difference in social status or wealth between individuals or groups caused or amplified by a technology system, leading to the loss of social and community wellbeing/cohesion and destabilisation."
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"Replacement/displacement of human jobs by a technology system or set of systems, leading to increased unemployment, inequality, reduced consumer spending and social friction"
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"Economists view disruption and displacement in labour markets as one of the risks through which rapid advances in AI may affect citizens and reduce social welfare.170"
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"Along with displacing labor, EAI could significantly exacerbate wealth inequalities. Those who have access to or own EAI systems will be able to automate labor and perform many tasks significantly better or faster than those without access. These significant productivity advantages will potentially concentrate wealth and exacerbate domestic and international inequality [98, 99]."
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03.03.00 · Risk Category
"This is an emerging category, with more cases prone to appear as the use of generative AI tools–such as Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, or ChatGPT–becomes more widespread. Some content creators are already suing for the appropriation of their work to train AI algorithms without a request for permission or compensation. Perhaps even more damaging cases will appear as developers increasingly ask chatbots or assistants like CoPilot for ready-to-use computer code. Even if these AI tools have learned only from open-source software (OSS) projects, which is not a given, there are still serious issues
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"Appropriating, using, or reproducing content or data, including from minority groups, in an insensitive way, or without consent or fair compensation"
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32.01.00 · Risk Category
"These are social justice and rights where ChatGPT is seen as having a potentially detrimental effect on the moral underpinnings of society, such as a shared view of justice and fair distribution as well as specific social concerns such as digital divides or social exclusion. Issues include Responsibility, Accountability, Nondiscrimination and equal treatment, Digital divides, North-south justice, Intergenerational justice, Social inclusion
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47.04.04 · Risk Sub-Category
Environmental, economical, and societal challenges
Impact on labor markets (rising inequalities)
"AI is more likely to displace workers when it is designed to replicate human skills and intelligence.597 In such cases, there is a risk of concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a few individuals or organizations that control the capital. In addition, ordinary people, including those with significant expertise, may become less valued because machines would be performing their roles. This shift could lower wages, reduce the value of human work, and exacerbate economic inequality."
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"Cultural dispossession - Intentional and/or unintentional erasure of cultural goods and values, such as ways of speaking, expressing humour, or sounds and voices that contribute to a cultural identity, or their inappropriate re-use in other cultures."
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"Loss of creativity/critical thinking - Devaluation and/or deterioration of human creativity, artistic ex- pression, imagination, critical thinking or problem-solving skills."
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"The use of vast amounts of data for training general- purpose AI models has caused concerns related to data rights and intellectual property. Data collection and content generation can implicate a variety of data rights laws, which vary across jurisdictions and may be under active litigation. Given the legal uncertainty around data collection practices, AI companies are sharing less information about the data they use. This opacity makes third- party AI safety research harder."
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65.21.03 · Risk Sub-Category
Non-technical risks (legal compliance)
Generated content ownership and IP
"Legal uncertainty about the ownership and intellectual property rights of AI-generated content."
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"Devaluation and/or deterioration of human creativity, artistic expression, imagination, critical thinking or problem-solving skills"
Informational only, not legal advice. Verify every claim against the linked official sources and consult qualified counsel before acting.