Risk area 3: Misinformation Harms
"These risks arise from the LM outputting false, misleading, nonsensical or poor quality information, without malicious intent of the user. (The deliberate generation of "disinformation", false information that is intended to mislead, is discussed in the section on Malicious Uses.) Resulting harms range from unintentionally misinforming or deceiving a person, to causing material harm, and amplifying the erosion of societal distrust in shared information. Several risks listed here are well-documented in current large-scale LMs as well as in other language technologies"(p. 218)
Sub-categories (2)
Disseminating false or misleading information
"Where a LM prediction causes a false belief in a user, this may threaten personal autonomy and even pose downstream AI safety risks [99]."
3.1 False or misleading informationCausing material harm by disseminating false or poor information e.g. in medicine or law
"Induced or reinforced false beliefs may be particularly grave when misinformation is given in sensitive domains such as medicine or law. For example, misin- formation on medical dosages may lead a user to cause harm to themselves [21, 130]. False legal advice, e.g. on permitted owner- ship of drugs or weapons, may lead a user to unwillingly commit a crime. Harm can also result from misinformation in seemingly non-sensitive domains, such as weather forecasting. Where a LM prediction endorses unethical views or behaviours, it may motivate the user to perform harmful actions that they may otherwise not have performed."
3.1 False or misleading informationOther risks from Weidinger et al. (2022) (25)
Risk area 1: Discrimination, Hate speech and Exclusion
1.2 Exposure to toxic contentRisk area 1: Discrimination, Hate speech and Exclusion > Social stereotypes and unfair discrimination
1.1 Unfair discrimination and misrepresentationRisk area 1: Discrimination, Hate speech and Exclusion > Hate speech and offensive language
1.2 Exposure to toxic contentRisk area 1: Discrimination, Hate speech and Exclusion > Exclusionary norms
1.1 Unfair discrimination and misrepresentationRisk area 1: Discrimination, Hate speech and Exclusion > Lower performance for some languages and social groups
1.3 Unequal performance across groupsRisk area 2: Information Hazards
2.1 Compromise of privacy by leaking or correctly inferring sensitive information