# Indexing AI Risks with Incidents, Issues, and Variants

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.10384 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.10384/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 2 of its 6 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 18 Nov 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Language Models are Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14165/) (2020)
- [Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.08512/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Responsible Reporting for Frontier AI Development](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.02675/) (2024)
- [Lessons for Editors of AI Incidents from the AI Incident Database](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.16425/) (2024)
- [Towards Safer Operations: An Expert-involved Dataset of High-Pressure Gas Incidents for Preventing Future Failures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.12074/) (2023)
- [Data-Centric Governance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.07872/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Two years after publicly launching the AI Incident Database (AIID) as a collection of harms or near harms produced by AI in the world, a backlog of "issues" that do not meet its incident ingestion criteria have accumulated in its review queue. Despite not passing the database's current criteria for incidents, these issues advance human understanding of where AI presents the potential for harm. Similar to databases in aviation and computer security, the AIID proposes to adopt a two-tiered system for indexing AI incidents (i.e., a harm or near harm event) and issues (i.e., a risk of a harm event). Further, as some machine learning-based systems will sometimes produce a large number of incidents, the notion of an incident "variant" is introduced. These proposed changes mark the transition of the AIID to a new version in response to lessons learned from editing 2,000+ incident reports and additional reports that fall under the new category of "issue."