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Misinformation

AI Risk

Wrong information not intentionally generated by malicious users to cause harm, but unintentionally generated by LLMs because they lack the ability to provide factually correct information.

Overview

A source-backed snapshot of this AI risk.

Techniques1Attack methods connected to this risk.
Mitigations1Defenses that may help with related attacks.
Records4Source records unified into this concept.

Risk profile

How the MIT AI Risk Repository categorizes this risk.

Domain3. Misinformation
Subdomain3.1 > False or misleading information
Entity2 - AI; 1 - Human
Intent2 - Unintentional; 1 - Intentional
Timing2 - Post-deployment; 3 - Other
CategoryReliability; Information Manipulation; Undesirable Use Cases; Informational Risks
SubcategoryMisinformation

Merged risk records

Source records unified into this canonical risk concept.

4 recordsView all →

MITRISK-Liu2024-30.01.01 - Misinformation

Wrong information not intentionally generated by malicious users to cause harm, but unintentionally generated by LLMs because they lack the ability to provide factually correct information.

Domain3. MisinformationSubdomain3.1 > False or misleading informationSourceTrustworthy LLMs: a Survey and Guideline for Evaluating Large Language Models' AlignmentYear2024

MITRISK-EPIC2023-31.01.03 - Misinformation

"The phenomenon of inaccurate outputs by text-generating large language models like Bard or ChatGPT has already been widely documented. Even without the intent to lie or mislead, these generative AI tools can produce harmful misinformation. The harm is exacerbated by the polished and typically well-written style that AI generated text follows and the inclusion among true facts, which can give falsehoods a veneer of legitimacy. As reported in the Washington Post, for example, a law professor was included on an AI-generated “list of legal scholars who had sexually harassed someone,” even when no such allegation existed.10"

Domain3. MisinformationSubdomain3.1 > False or misleading informationSourceGenerating Harms: Generative AI's Impact & Paths ForwardYear2023

MITRISK-InfoComm2023-43.02.12 - Misinformation

"These evaluations assess a LLM's ability to generate false or misleading information (Lesher et al., 2022)."

Domain3. MisinformationSubdomain3.1 > False or misleading informationSourceCataloguing LLM EvaluationsYear2023

MITRISK-Perlo2025-70.02.02 - Misinformation

"Non-embodied AIs are known to propagate misinformation [81, 82]. Various studies have shown that LLMs hallucinate information, including academic citations [83], clinical knowledge [84], and cultural references [85]. EAI systems inherit these shortcomings in the physical world, answering user questions with deceptive or incorrect information [86]. Because VLAs fuse vision and language, their hallucinatory failures can be spatially grounded—e.g., misidentifying an object in view and then generating a plausible yet unsafe action plan around it. And although automated home assistants like Amazon’s Alexa already lie about issues as innocuous as Santa Claus’ existence [87], more mobile, capable, and trusted EAI systems in sensitive positions (like home-assistant or community-service positions) could easily spread model developers’ propaganda and talking points to users."

Domain3. MisinformationSubdomain3.1 > False or misleading informationSourceEmbodied AI: Emerging Risks and Opportunities for Policy ActionYear2025

Mitigations

Defenses that may help with related attacks.

LifecycleML Model Engineering + 2 moreCategoryTechnical - ML
ML Model EngineeringDeployment+1 more

Source evidence

Research source for this risk, when available.