Physical Harm and Injury Risks

Frontier AI Risk Management Framework (v1.0)

SAIL & Concordia AI (2025)

Source

Sub-category

Risk Domain

4Malicious Actors & Misuse

4.2Cyberattacks, weapon development or use, and mass harm

Using AI systems to develop cyber weapons (e.g., by coding cheaper, more effective malware), develop new or enhance existing weapons (e.g., Lethal Autonomous Weapons or chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high-yield explosives), or use weapons to cause mass harm.

"The integration of general-purpose AI models into embodied systems creates direct physical threats through malicious exploitation of autonomous decision-making capabilities in real-world environments. The risk lies in embodied models' capacity for autonomous action and real-world interaction, and when these capabilities are maliciously exploited they may trigger a series of serious consequences.18"(p. 6)

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

Supporting Evidence (1)

"For example, algorithms being hijacked leading to autonomous driving systems causing major traffic accidents, or compromised industrial robots triggering serious production safety incidents."(p. 6)