Diffusion interventions

Capability-Modifying Interventions

Capability-modifying interventions intervene at points immediately preceding the “development” and “diffusion” steps

Capability-Modifying Interventions > Development interventions

Society can affect which AI capabilities are developed. For example, companies could refrain from developing systems that have certain potentially harmful capabilities, or make systems that are more resistant to jailbreaking, have higher chances of refusing potentially harmful requests, or have outputs that can be more easily identifiable as AI-generated.

Adaptation Interventions

Adaptation interventions, the primary focus of this paper, intervene at later stages in the causal chain. Such interventions immediately precede the “use”, “initial harm” or “impact” stages of that chain. (Occasionally, a specific intervention can affect multiple points along the causal chain.)

Adaptation Interventions > Avoidance interventions

Society can reduce the expected extent of the potentially harmful use of AI, making the problematic actions in question more difficult to engage in, or more costly compared to relevant alternatives.12 One can make it more difficult for a given instance of potentially harmful AI activity to occur by limiting the user’s or the AI system’s access to key resources that are required for the activity in question, or to key actuators that are required for completion of the intended action. (In the spear phishing example we introduced in Section 3.1: relevant companies could make it harder for cybercriminals to access the names and contact details of their staff.) One can make potentially harmful uses of AI more ex ante costly by building institutions that create credible threats of punishment for harmful use.13

Adaptation Interventions > Defence interventions

Holding fixed that the potentially harmful use of AI occurs, society can reduce the expected extent of the corresponding initial harm. In our spear phishing example, “defence” is a matter of reducing the chance that the spear phishing emails succeed in giving the cybercriminal access to the sensitive information. For example, companies could provide anti-phishing training to their staff, and implement tools to warn staff of suspected phishing emails. They could ensure that only a very small number of staff members have access to particularly sensitive information, and then only with approval from other employees.

Adaptation Interventions > Remedial interventions

Holding fixed that the initial harm occurs, society can reduce or eliminate the expected negative impact downstream of that. In our spear phishing example, this might go via reducing the extent to which national security is undermined as a result of the sale of the proprietary information to a foreign actor. For example, the company could include some false and misleading documents on its servers. Governments could reduce incentives for staff with relevant implicit knowledge to work for the foreign actor, on the grounds that implicit knowledge is often required to complement information contained in documents.