An Overview of Catastrophic AI Risks

Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have sparked growing concerns among experts,

policymakers, and world leaders regarding the potential for increasingly advanced AI systems

to pose catastrophic risks. Although numerous risks have been detailed separately, there is a

pressing need for a systematic discussion and illustration of the potential dangers to better inform

efforts to mitigate them. This paper provides an overview of the main sources of catastrophic

AI risks, which we organize into four categories: malicious use, in which individuals or groups

intentionally use AIs to cause harm; AI race, in which competitive environments compel actors to

deploy unsafe AIs or cede control to AIs; organizational risks, highlighting how human factors and

complex systems can increase the chances of catastrophic accidents; and rogue AIs, describing

the inherent difficulty in controlling agents far more intelligent than humans.