Physical and Psychological Harms

"These harms include harms to physical integrity, mental health and well-being. When interacting with vulnerable users, AI assistants may reinforce users’ distorted beliefs or exacerbate their emotional distress. AI assistants may even convince users to harm themselves, for example by convincing users to engage in actions such as adopting unhealthy dietary or exercise habits or taking their own lives. At the societal level, assistants that target users with content promoting hate speech, discriminatory beliefs or violent ideologies, may reinforce extremist views or provide users with guidance on how to carry out violent actions. In turn, this may encourage users to engage in violence or hate crimes. Physical harms resulting from interaction with AI assistants could also be the result of assistants’ outputting plausible yet factually incorrect information such as false or misleading information about vaccinations. Were AI assistants to spread anti-vaccine propaganda, for example, the result could be lower public confidence in vaccines, lower vaccination rates, increased susceptibility to preventable diseases and potential outbreaks of infectious diseases."