Risks to the environment
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.
"General- purpose AI is a moderate but rapidly growing contributor to global environmental impacts through energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Current estimates indicate that data centres and data transmission account for an estimated 1% of global energy- related GHG emissions, with AI consuming 10–28% of data centre energy capacity. AI energy demand is expected to grow substantially by 2026, with some estimates projecting a doubling or more, driven primarily by general-purpose AI systems such as language models."(p. 128)
Supporting Evidence (2)
"Recent advances in general- purpose AI capabilities have been largely driven by a marked increase in the amount of computation that goes into developing and using AI models, which uses more energy. While AI firms are increasingly powering their data centre operations with renewable energy, a significant portion of AI training globally still relies on high- carbon energy sources such as coal or natural gas, leading to the aforementioned emissions and contributing to climate change. ●"(p. 128)
"AI development and deployment also has significant environmental impacts through water and resource consumption, and through AI applications that can either harm or benefit sustainability efforts. AI consumes large amounts of water for energy production, hardware manufacturing, and data centre cooling. All of these demands increase proportionally to AI development, use, and capability. AI can also be used to facilitate environmentally detrimental activities such as oil exploration, as well as in environmentally friendly applications with the potential to mitigate or help society adapt to climate change, such as optimising systems for energy production and transmission."(p. 128)
Other risks from Bengio2025 (13)
Risks from malicious use
4.0 Malicious Actors & MisuseRisks from malicious use > Harm to individuals through fake content
4.3 Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulationRisks from malicious use > Manipulation of public opinion
4.1 Disinformation, surveillance, and influence at scaleRisks from malicious use > Cyber offence
4.2 Cyberattacks, weapon development or use, and mass harmRisks from malicious use > Biological and chemical attacks
4.2 Cyberattacks, weapon development or use, and mass harmReliability issues
7.3 Lack of capability or robustness