BackEnvironmental cost
Environmental cost
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.
"Large-scale DL systems can produce signicant carbon emissions as a result of the computational demands of training runs and inference [539]"(p. 18)
Entity— Who or what caused the harm
Intent— Whether the harm was intentional or accidental
Timing— Whether the risk is pre- or post-deployment
Other risks from Leech et al. (2024) (13)
Harm caused by incompetent systems
7.3 Lack of capability or robustnessAI systemUnintentionalPost-deployment
Harm caused by unaligned competent systems
7.1 AI pursuing its own goals in conflict with human goals or valuesOtherOtherOther
Harm caused by unaligned competent systems > Specification gaming
7.1 AI pursuing its own goals in conflict with human goals or valuesAI systemIntentionalOther
Harm caused by unaligned competent systems > Emergent goals
7.1 AI pursuing its own goals in conflict with human goals or valuesAI systemIntentionalOther
Harm caused by unaligned competent systems > Deceptive alignment
7.2 AI possessing dangerous capabilitiesAI systemIntentionalPre-deployment
Within-country issues: domestic inequality
6.1 Power centralization and unfair distribution of benefitsOtherOtherOther