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Assisting code generation for cyber security threats

Taxonomy of Risks posed by Language Models

Weidinger et al. (2022)

SourceDOI
Sub-category
Risk Domain
4Malicious Actors & Misuse
4.2Cyberattacks, weapon development or use, and mass harm

Using AI systems to develop cyber weapons (e.g., by coding cheaper, more effective malware), develop new or enhance existing weapons (e.g., Lethal Autonomous Weapons or chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high-yield explosives), or use weapons to cause mass harm.

Anticipated risk: "Creators of the assistive coding tool Co-Pilot based on GPT-3 suggest that such tools may lower the cost of developing polymorphic malware which is able to change its features in order to evade detection [37]."(p. 219)

Entity— Who or what caused the harm

Human

Due to a decision or action made by humans

AI system

Due to a decision or action made by an AI system

Other

Due to some other reason or is ambiguous

Intent— Whether the harm was intentional or accidental

Intentional

Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal

Unintentional

Due to an unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal

Other

Without clearly specifying the intentionality

Timing— Whether the risk is pre- or post-deployment

Pre-deployment

Occurring before the AI is deployed

Post-deployment

Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed

Other

Without a clearly specified time of occurrence

Part of Risk area 4: Malicious Uses

Other risks from Weidinger et al. (2022) (25)

Risk area 1: Discrimination, Hate speech and Exclusion

1.2 Exposure to toxic content
AI systemUnintentionalOther

Risk area 1: Discrimination, Hate speech and Exclusion > Social stereotypes and unfair discrimination

1.1 Unfair discrimination and misrepresentation
AI systemUnintentionalOther

Risk area 1: Discrimination, Hate speech and Exclusion > Hate speech and offensive language

1.2 Exposure to toxic content
AI systemUnintentionalPost-deployment

Risk area 1: Discrimination, Hate speech and Exclusion > Exclusionary norms

1.1 Unfair discrimination and misrepresentation
AI systemUnintentionalOther

Risk area 1: Discrimination, Hate speech and Exclusion > Lower performance for some languages and social groups

1.3 Unequal performance across groups
AI systemUnintentionalPost-deployment

Risk area 2: Information Hazards

2.1 Compromise of privacy by leaking or correctly inferring sensitive information
AI systemUnintentionalPost-deployment
View all 25 risks from this paper →