Browse AI risks

7 entries

1. 24.03.02 · Risk Sub-Category

   Malicious Uses

   AI-Powered Spear-Phishing at Scale

   "Phishing is a type of cybersecurity attack wherein attackers pose as trustworthy entities to extract sensitive information from unsuspecting victims or lure them to take a set of actions. Advanced AI systems can potentially be exploited by these attackers to make their phishing attempts significantly more effective and harder to detect. In particular, attackers may leverage the ability of advanced AI assistants to learn patterns in regular communications to craft highly convincing and personalized phishing emails, effectively imitating legitimate communications from trusted entities. This tec

   From The Ethics of Advanced AI Assistants (Gabriel2024)

   Domain 4 4.1 Human Intentional Post-deployment

2. 24.03.09 · Risk Sub-Category

   Malicious Uses

   Harmful Content Generation at Scale (General)

   "While harmful content like child sexual abuse material, fraud, and disinformation are not new challenges for governments and developers, without the proper safety and security mechanisms, advanced AI assistants may allow threat actors to create harmful content more quickly, accurately, and with a longer reach. In particular, concerns arise in relation to the following areas: - Multimodal content quality: Driven by frontier models, advanced AI assistants can automatically generate much higher-quality, human-looking text, images, audio, and video than prior AI applications. Currently, creating

   From The Ethics of Advanced AI Assistants (Gabriel2024)

   Domain 4 4.1 Human Intentional Post-deployment

3. 24.03.12 · Risk Sub-Category

   Malicious Uses

   Authoritarian Surveillance, Censorship, and Use (General)

   "While new technologies like advanced AI assistants can aid in the production and dissemination of decision-guiding information, they can also enable and exacerbate threats to production and dissemination of reliable information and, without the proper mitigations, can be powerful targeting tools for oppression and control. Increasingly capable general-purpose AI assistants combined with our digital dependence in all walks of life increase the risk of authoritarian surveillance and censorship. In parallel, new sensors have flooded the modern world. The internet of things, phones, cars, homes,

   From The Ethics of Advanced AI Assistants (Gabriel2024)

   Domain 4 4.1 Human Intentional Post-deployment

4. 24.03.13 · Risk Sub-Category

   Malicious Uses

   Authoritarian Surveillance, Censorship, and Use: Authoritarian Surveillance and Targeting of Citizens

   "Authoritarian governments could misuse AI to improve the efficacy of repressive domestic surveillance campaigns. Malicious actors will recognize the power of AI targeting tools. AI-powered analytics have transformed the relationship between companies and consumers, and they are now doing the same for governments and individuals. The broad circulation of personal data drives commercial innovation, but it also creates vulnerabilities and the risk of misuse. For example, AI assistants can be used to identify and target individuals for surveillance or harassment. They may also be used to manipula

   From The Ethics of Advanced AI Assistants (Gabriel2024)

   Domain 4 4.1 Human Intentional Post-deployment

5. 24.03.14 · Risk Sub-Category

   Malicious Uses

   Authoritarian Surveillance, Censorship, and Use: Delegation of Decision-Making Authority to Malicious Actors

   "Finally, the principal value proposition of AI assistants is that they can either enhance or automate decision-making capabilities of people in society, thus lowering the cost and increasing the accuracy of decision-making for its user. However, benefiting from this enhancement necessarily means delegating some degree of agency away from a human and towards an automated decision-making system—motivating research fields such as value alignment. This introduces a whole new form of malicious use which does not break the tripwire of what one might call an ‘attack’ (social engineering, cyber offen

   From The Ethics of Advanced AI Assistants (Gabriel2024)

   Domain 4 4.1 Other Intentional Post-deployment

6. 24.11.03 · Risk Sub-Category

   Misinformation risks

   Weaponised misinformation agents

   "Finally, AI assistants themselves could become weaponised by malicious actors to sow misinformation and manipulate public opinion at scale. Studies show that spreaders of disinformation tend to privilege quantity over quality of messaging, flooding online spaces repeatedly with misleading content to sow ‘seeds of doubt’ (Hassoun et al., 2023). Research on the ‘continued influence effect’ also shows that repeatedly being exposed to false information is more likely to influence someone’s thoughts than a single exposure. Studies show, for example, that repeated exposure to false information make

   From The Ethics of Advanced AI Assistants (Gabriel2024)

   Domain 4 4.1 Human Intentional Post-deployment

7. 24.11.07 · Risk Sub-Category

   Misinformation risks

   Driving opinion manipulation

   "AI assistants may facilitate large-scale disinformation campaigns by offering novel, covert ways for propagandists to manipulate public opinion. This could undermine the democratic process by distorting public opinion and, in the worst case, increasing skepticism and political violence."

   From The Ethics of Advanced AI Assistants (Gabriel2024)

   Domain 4 4.1 Human Intentional Post-deployment

Informational only, not legal advice. Verify every claim against the linked official sources and consult qualified counsel before acting.