Gradual Disempowerment: Systemic Existential Risks from Incremental AI Development
2025/01/28 by Jan Kulveit, Kulveit, Jan, Raymond Douglas +10 · 21 voices · 20 citations
Social Sciences · #Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2501.16946
Abstract
This paper examines the systemic risks posed by incremental advancements in artificial intelligence, developing the concept of `gradual disempowerment', in contrast to the abrupt takeover scenarios commonly discussed in AI safety. We analyze how even incremental improvements in AI capabilities can undermine human influence over large-scale systems that society depends on, including the economy, culture, and nation-states. As AI increasingly replaces human labor and cognition in these domains, it can weaken both explicit human control mechanisms (like voting and consumer choice) and the implicit alignments with human interests that often arise from societal systems' reliance on human participation to function. Furthermore, to the extent that these systems incentivise outcomes that do not line up with human preferences, AIs may optimize for those outcomes more aggressively. These effects may be mutually reinforcing across different domains: economic power shapes cultural narratives and political decisions, while cultural shifts alter economic and political behavior. We argue that this dynamic could lead to an effectively irreversible loss of human influence over crucial societal systems, precipitating an existential catastrophe through the permanent disempowerment of humanity. This suggests the need for both technical research and governance approaches that specifically address the risk of incremental erosion of human influence across interconnected societal systems.
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- Gradual Disempowerment: How Even Incremental AI Progress Poses Existential Risks [hn, 87 points, 84 comments]
- 9/9 📄 Gradual Disempowerment paper - give it a serous read: arxiv.org/abs/2501.16946 [bsky, 8 points, 0 comments]
- I am much less worried about this style of disaster than the gradual disempowerment scenarios - those are even tougher to deal with (the enemy there are coordination problems rather than a single AI). [bsky, 4 points, 1 comments]
- A good thought piece on how AI systems rise may lead to gradual disempowerment. As AI dominates the economy, culture, and governance, human influence may erode, shifting power to AI-driven systems. Wi [bsky, 4 points, 0 comments]
- Gradual Disempowerment: Systemic Existential Risks of Incremental AI Development [hn, 1 points, 0 comments]
- Source: arxiv.org/pdf/2501.16946 [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]
- Link to arXiv version: arxiv.org/pdf/2501.16946 [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]
- AI paranoia is often just more hype that overestimates the power of the tech. But huge insidious risks WILL come with blind adoption. See: "Gradual Disempowerment: Systemic Existential Risks from Incr [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]
- Gradual Disempowerment is a "boring", underrepresented and the most likely scenario of total, but gradual, elimination of human labor necessity [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]
- "This paper has argued that even incremental AI development could lead to an existential catastrophe through the gradual erosion of human influence over key societal systems," arxiv.org/pdf/2501.16946 [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]
- AI stopniowo podmywająca władzę ludzi nad ich własnym światem arxiv.org/pdf/2501.16946 [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]
- Gradual Disempowerment: How Even Incremental AI Progress Poses Existential Risks https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.16946 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42898914) [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
- Gradual Disempowerment: Systemic Existential Risks from Incremental AI Development #work #economy #politics #cognition #disempowerment #artificialintelligence #influence #control #alignment #dependenc [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
- Gradual Disempowerment: How Even Incremental AI Progress Poses Existential Risks https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.16946 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42898914) [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
- https://bsky.app/profile/news.ycombinator.com.web.brid.gy/post/3lh4ylt7eh2r2 [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
- Maybe not ideal? Paper on impact of AGI "By default, these changes would collectively lead to a drastic reduction in the extent to which the economy is shaped by human preferences, including their pr [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
- arxiv.org/abs/2501.169... 🤔 [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
- Un papier récent beaucoup plus lisible et qui pose vraiment bien l'importance de *renforcer la participation citoyenne* et de *redéfinir un contrat social* où l’IA n’est pas un simple outil, mais un s [bsky, 0 points, 1 comments]
- Gradual Disempowerment: How Even Incremental AI Progress Poses Existential Risks #HackerNews arxiv.org/abs/... [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
- Gradual Disempowerment: How Even Incremental AI Progress Poses Existential Risks https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.16946 [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
- Gradual Disempowerment: How Even Incremental AI Progress Poses Existential Risks https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.16946 [comments] [38 points] [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
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