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MIT AI Risk Initiative
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Environment

A Taxonomy of Systemic Risks from General-Purpose AI

Uuk et al. (2025)

SourceDOI
Sub-category
Risk Domain
6Socioeconomic & Environmental
6.6Environmental harm

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.

"The impact of AI on the environment, including risks related to climate change and pollution."(p. 10)

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

Other risks from Uuk et al. (2025) (60)

Control

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

Democracy

6.0 Socioeconomic & Environmental
OtherOtherOther

Discrimination

1.1 Unfair discrimination and misrepresentation
OtherOtherPost-deployment

Economy

6.2 Increased inequality and decline in employment quality
OtherOtherPost-deployment

Governance

6.5 Governance failure
AI systemUnintentionalPost-deployment

Harms to non-humans

7.5 AI welfare and rights
HumanUnintentionalPost-deployment
View all 60 risks from this paper →