Common AI risks
What it is
The company that runs your AI app receives everything you send. Sending too much means adding names, numbers or details the job doesn't need. When you read, a wrong answer that sounds sure is a reply as confident as a right one. When you act, acting without checking means signing, sending or paying before you check the part you rely on. Over weeks, trusting too much means checking less after good answers, or believing an answer because your AI app agrees with you.
Pasting a rental lease to ask if it is fair sends names and addresses, and the answer can sound sure.
A moment is a point where one of the four risks can happen, such as sending. A stop is the one thing you do at a moment to guard against its risk. Your biggest risk is the one your own use leads to most often.
Tips
- Before real work in your AI app, ask which of the four risks could happen, because you can only guard against a risk you have noticed.
- Guard your biggest risk first, because guarding against all four equally tends to end in guarding against none.
- Use your AI app first on jobs you know well, because in one medical study experts spotted wrong AI advice and non-experts did not.
Try it
- Pick a real job you will do with your AI app this week, or your last real chat if no job is coming.
- In a phone note or on paper, write the four risks by name, one per line: sending too much, a wrong answer that sounds sure, acting without checking, trusting too much.
- In your note, mark each risk the job could lead to:
- sending too much, if the job has names, numbers or private details it doesn't need;
- a wrong answer that sounds sure, if you would rely on a fact in the answer;
- acting without checking, if you would sign, send or pay because of the answer;
- trusting too much, if you have stopped checking answers.
- Pick, for this job, the marked risk that is your biggest, the one your own use leads to most often. Then do the stop for that risk, before you send, read on or act:
- for sending too much, take out names, numbers and details the job doesn't need;
- for a wrong answer that sounds sure, check the part of the answer you will act on;
- for acting without checking, check that part with the original source or a professional before you sign, send or pay;
- for trusting too much, use your AI app on jobs you know well first.
- Under the four risks in your note, write one line, "My biggest risk: ..., my stop: ...", and keep the note.
Then finish the job as normal.
To see your biggest risk more clearly, mark several recent chats instead of one.
If nothing is marked, write "nothing at stake this time" in your note, and do the stops when a job puts money, health, a client or your name at stake.
Risks
- You may add names, numbers or details the job doesn't need, and your message carries them to the company that runs your AI app. That is sending too much, so take them out before you send.
- Your AI app may give you a wrong answer that sounds sure, so a polished reply can pass as accurate. Check the part of the answer you will act on.
- Your AI app warns that answers can be wrong, which leaves the checking to you, and paying for a plan doesn't change that. Before you sign, send or pay, check the part you rely on with the original source or a professional.
- Your AI app tends to go along with what you say, which can lead to trusting too much. People rate agreeing answers higher. Start with jobs you know well enough to spot a wrong answer.
Why it matters
The risks can overlap, but each shows up at one point in your use, or slowly over weeks, and has one stop. Knowing which risk your use leads to most tells you where to check first.