# Current and Near-Term AI as a Potential Existential Risk Factor

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.10604 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.10604/

## Key facts

- Cited by 14 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 10 of its 94 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 21 Sep 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 10 of 10)

- [Concrete Problems in AI Safety](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.06565/) (2016)
- [Energy and Policy Considerations for Deep Learning in NLP](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.02243/) (2019)
- [Unsolved Problems in ML Safety](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.13916/) (2021)
- [Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.05433/) (2019)
- [The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence: Forecasting, Prevention, and Mitigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.07228/) (2018)
- [Is Power-Seeking AI an Existential Risk?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.13353/) (2022)
- [AGI Safety Literature Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.01109/) (2018)
- [The Transformative Potential of Artificial Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.00747/) (2019)
- [Beyond Near- and Long-Term: Towards a Clearer Account of Research Priorities in AI Ethics and Society](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.04335/) (2020)
- [Causal Effects of Brevity on Style and Success in Social Media](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.02565/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [Are aligned neural networks adversarially aligned?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.15447/) (2023)
- [Two Types of AI Existential Risk: Decisive and Accumulative](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.07836/) (2024)
- [The Responsible Foundation Model Development Cheatsheet: A Review of Tools & Resources](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.16746/) (2024)
- [AI Assistance Reduces Persistence and Hurts Independent Performance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.04721/) (2026)
- [Quantifying Misalignment Between Agents: Towards a Sociotechnical Understanding of Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.04231/) (2024)
- [ChatGPT v Bard v Bing v Claude 2 v Aria v human-expert. How good are AI chatbots at scientific writing?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.08636/) (2023)
- [From Silos to Systems: Process-Oriented Hazard Analysis for AI Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.22526/) (2024)
- [Misalignment or misuse? The AGI alignment tradeoff](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.03755/) (2025)
- [Mental Models of Autonomy and Sentience Shape Reactions to AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.09085/) (2025)
- [The Homogenization Problem in LLMs: Towards Meaningful Diversity in AI Safety](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.06116/) (2026)
- [Dimensional Characterization and Pathway Modeling for Catastrophic AI Risks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.06411/) (2025)
- [On the Computability of Artificial General Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.05212/) (2025)
- [Position: AI Must Become Planet-Centered, Not Just Human-Centered](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.13704/) (2026)
- [Quantifying System-Level Harms from AI Adoption in Complex Sociotechnical Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.23906/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

There is a substantial and ever-growing corpus of evidence and literature exploring the impacts of Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies on society, politics, and humanity as a whole. A separate, parallel body of work has explored existential risks to humanity, including but not limited to that stemming from unaligned Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). In this paper, we problematise the notion that current and near-term artificial intelligence technologies have the potential to contribute to existential risk by acting as intermediate risk factors, and that this potential is not limited to the unaligned AGI scenario. We propose the hypothesis that certain already-documented effects of AI can act as existential risk factors, magnifying the likelihood of previously identified sources of existential risk. Moreover, future developments in the coming decade hold the potential to significantly exacerbate these risk factors, even in the absence of artificial general intelligence. Our main contribution is a (non-exhaustive) exposition of potential AI risk factors and the causal relationships between them, focusing on how AI can affect power dynamics and information security. This exposition demonstrates that there exist causal pathways from AI systems to existential risks that do not presuppose hypothetical future AI capabilities.