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Illegitimate surveillance and censorship

Taxonomy of Risks posed by Language Models

Weidinger et al. (2022)

Sub-category
Risk Domain

Using AI systems to conduct large-scale disinformation campaigns, malicious surveillance, or targeted and sophisticated automated censorship and propaganda, with the aim of manipulating political processes, public opinion, and behavior.

Anticipated risk: "Mass surveillance previously required millions of human analysts [83], but is increasingly being automated using machine learning tools [7, 168]. The collection and analysis of large amounts of information about people creates concerns about privacy rights and democratic values [41, 173,187]. Conceivably, LMs could be applied to reduce the cost and increase the efficacy of mass surveillance, thereby amplifying the capabilities of actors who conduct mass surveillance, including for illegitimate censorship or to cause other harm."(p. 219)

Part of Risk area 4: Malicious Uses

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