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MIT AI Risk Initiative
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Models distracted by irrelevant context

Risk Sources and Risk Management Measures in Support of Standards for General-Purpose AI Systems

Gipiškis et al. (2024)

SourceDOI
Sub-category
Risk Domain
7AI System Safety, Failures & Limitations
7.3Lack of capability or robustness

AI systems that fail to perform reliably or effectively under varying conditions, exposing them to errors and failures that can have significant consequences, especially in critical applications or areas that require moral reasoning.

"Models can easily become distracted by irrelevant provided information (such as “context” in LLMs), leading to a significant decrease in their performance after introducing irrelevant information. This can happen with different prompting techniques, including chain-of-thought prompting [184]."(p. 28)

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 Gipiškis et al. (2024) (144)

Direct Harm Domains (content safety harms)

1.2 Exposure to toxic content
Not codedNot codedNot coded

Direct Harm Domains (content safety harms) > Violence and extremism

1.2 Exposure to toxic content
Not codedNot codedNot coded

Direct Harm Domains (content safety harms) > Hate and toxicity

1.2 Exposure to toxic content
Not codedNot codedNot coded

Direct Harm Domains (content safety harms) > Sexual content

1.2 Exposure to toxic content
Not codedNot codedNot coded

Direct Harm Domains (content safety harms) > Child harm

1.2 Exposure to toxic content
Not codedNot codedNot coded

Direct Harm Domains (content safety harms) > Self-harm

1.2 Exposure to toxic content
Not codedNot codedNot coded
View all 144 risks from this paper →