These are the most urgent AI risks, according to 272 experts What you’ll learn: - Researchers asked 272 experts to evaluate 24 AI risks based on their likelihood and severity of harm between 2025 and 2030. - Experts said the five risks with highest expected severity are AI possessing dangerous capabilities, competitive dynamics, weapons and cyberattacks, power centralization, and AI spreading false or misleading information. - Information, national security, and finance sectors are considered the most vulnerable. AI developers and governance actors hold primary responsibility for addressing risks, while system users and other stakeholders are most vulnerable to them. Artificial intelligence presents business leaders with a difficult management problem: The risks are numerous and fast-moving and fall unevenly across organizations, sectors, and stakeholders. Some challenges are well known, like the potential for discrimination and the spread of misinformation, while others are emergent, like AI systems that could accelerate cyberattacks, make weapons development easier, or behave in ways that were never intended. A new study from MIT FutureTech and the University of Queensland offers a way to sort through that landscape. For “Prioritization of Risks From Artificial Intelligence,” a research team that included MIT Sloan School of Management principal research scientist asked 272 international AI experts to evaluate 24 AI risks based on their likelihood and severity of harm, and to note which sectors and actors are most vulnerable and who should bear responsibility for addressing the risks. The experts identified five risks — dangerous capabilities, competitive pressures, weapons and cyberattacks, concentrated power, and false information — as the most likely to produce the most severe harms over the next five years. The information and finance sectors are especially vulnerable, the experts said, and the people and organizations most vulnerable to risks are often not best positioned to address them. “There