Systemic Risks in Contemporary AI Systems

This chapter illustrates how the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystems combined with data exploitation and misinformation, supply-chain weaknesses, manipulation of digital twins and preservation of stable data has precipitated an unprecedented threat landscape. It addresses key systemic risks in contemporary AI systems related to misinformation, model dependency and supply-chain security. The chapter also addresses the AI-related cyber risks and explores the triage of cyber adaptive defense and cyber resilience that organizations can implement. Data, in modern digital systems, has become a strategic asset, controlling, among other things, the unimpeded functioning of health diagnostic systems and the unmonitored operation of power supply systems. The rise of dark intelligence marks a pivotal point for AI as both a target and weapon. Ethical quandaries accompany the integration of AI into almost every aspect of societal life, governance, healthcare, finance, security and the public sphere.