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AI is designed in a way that shows ignorant, reckless, or prejudiced lack of consideration for its impact on animals

Harm to Nonhuman Animals from AI: a Systematic Account and Framework

Coghlan & Parker (2023)

Sub-category
Risk Domain

The development and operation of AI systems causing environmental harm, such as through energy consumption of data centers, or material and carbon footprints associated with AI hardware.

Supporting Evidence (2)

1.
Example: "self-driving cars are not programmed to avoid collisions with small animals"(p. 12)
2.
"Proposals to deliberately harass birds with automated drones to prevent perching on buildings have also been made, sometimes with the claim that it is less harmful than alternatives (Schiano et al., 2022). More broadly, increasing tagging and tracking in the wider IoT could significantly disrupt animal activities, behaviour, and habitats. Individual or swarms of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles used to surveil and monitor ‘livestock’ might distress or even injure animals, particularly if the animals have evolved to fear predators in the air (Alanezi et al., 2022)."(p. 18)

Part of Unintentional: direct

Other risks from Coghlan & Parker (2023) (11)