A summary of the sixth risk framework included in the AI Risk Repository: "A framework for ethical AI at the United Nations" by Lambert Hogenhout.
This paper systematically lists 13 issues from AI:
Incompetence
AI systems may fail at their tasks, leading to serious consequences such as accidents or unjust decisions.
Loss of Privacy
AI can exacerbate privacy violations by using personal data to create detailed user profiles, increasing the risk of misuse.
Discrimination
AI systems, if not carefully designed, can perpetuate systemic biases and unfairly target specific groups.
Bias
AI systems inherit biases from the data they are trained on, leading to skewed or unfair outcomes.
Erosion of Society
Personalized AI algorithms, such as news feeds, can isolate individuals into echo chambers, eroding shared reality and social cohesion.
Lack of Transparency
Many AI systems operate as "black boxes," making it difficult to understand or trust their decision-making processes.
Deception
AI technologies are capable of creating highly convincing fake content, making it difficult to discern truth from fiction.
Unintended Consequences
AI may achieve its goals in unintended, harmful ways, such as a robot solving a cleanliness problem by eliminating the source of mess.
Manipulation
AI can be used to manipulate individuals or groups, as seen in the Cambridge Analytica scandal where personal data was misused for political targeting.
Lethal Autonomous Weapons (LAW)
AI-powered weapons that autonomously make lethal decisions raise serious ethical concerns about the role of machines in warfare.
Malicious Use of AI
AI can assist in carrying out cybercrimes or be used maliciously, such as in AI-supported hacking or malware.
Loss of Autonomy
Delegating decisions to AI, especially non-transparent systems, can leave individuals feeling powerless and at the mercy of machines.
Exclusion
The high resource demands of AI could concentrate power in the hands of a few, leaving others excluded from its benefits.
Provides an overview of the ethical concerns in artificial intelligence and the framework that is needed to mitigate those risks
Suggests a practical path to ensure the development and use of AI at the United Nations (UN) aligns with human ethical values
Explores different ethical frameworks that exist and tools such as assessment lists
Hogenhout, L. (2021). A framework for ethical AI at the United Nations. arXiv preprint arXiv:2104.12547.