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MIT AI Risk Initiative
BackEroding trust and undermining shared knowledge
Entrenching specific ideologies
Driving opinion manipulation

Eroding trust and undermining shared knowledge

The Ethics of Advanced AI Assistants

Gabriel et al. (2024)

SourceDOI
Sub-category
Risk Domain
3Misinformation
3.2Pollution of information ecosystem and loss of consensus reality

Highly personalized AI-generated misinformation creating “filter bubbles” where individuals only see what matches their existing beliefs, undermining shared reality, weakening social cohesion and political processes.

"AI assistants may contribute to the spread of large quantities of factually inaccurate and misleading content, with negative consequences for societal trust in information sources and institutions, as individuals increasingly struggle to discern truth from falsehood."(p. 164)

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 Misinformation risks

Other risks from Gabriel et al. (2024) (69)

Capability failures

7.3 Lack of capability or robustness
AI systemUnintentionalOther

Capability failures > Lack of capability for task

7.3 Lack of capability or robustness
AI systemUnintentionalPre-deployment

Capability failures > Difficult to develop metrics for evaluating benefits or harms caused by AI assistants

6.5 Governance failure
AI systemUnintentionalPre-deployment

Capability failures > Safe exploration problem with widely deployed AI assistants

7.3 Lack of capability or robustness
AI systemUnintentionalPost-deployment

Goal-related failures

7.1 AI pursuing its own goals in conflict with human goals or values
AI systemOtherPre-deployment

Goal-related failures > Misaligned consequentialist reasoning

7.3 Lack of capability or robustness
AI systemOtherPre-deployment
View all 69 risks from this paper →