Search arXiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 2607.18170

An approach to systemic risks of AI through the lens of emergence, collective action problems, and externalities

Carsten Orwat·Lucas Staab·Alexandros Gazos
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

The integration of general-purpose artificial intelligence models into downstream AI systems, among other developments, has given rise to new forms of risk that are more systemic in nature than conventional AI risks. However, there is no generally accepted definition of systemic risks in general and for AI in particular. Conceptualisations of these risks vary across research and regulation. Especially the application of the systemic risk approach to human rights or fundamental rights, like in the EU AI Act, is relatively new, just as the research on the contribution of AI to systemic forms of discrimination, privacy violations, erosions of democracy, or climate and environmental degradation. We argue that some concepts so far have not sufficiently take complexity and emergence into account. Furthermore, this variety of concepts might hinder responsible actors to adequately assess the systemic risks of AI, leading to inadequate prevention and mitigation measures and ineffective governance. To contribute to the understanding of systemic risks of AI, we propose a conceptualisation of systemic risks of AI that considers complex phenomena that lead to the emergence of harms at the societal or global level. We outline systemic risks mainly as complex externalities and collective action problems. Of particular interest are feedback dynamics, processes that lead to market concentration like network effects, algorithmic monocultures, and integration processes of AI supply chains or 'AI ecosystems' and across societal sectors, which can result in structural dominance, (inter-) dependencies, and cascading risks. Further phenomena contributing to systemic risks are information asymmetries, informational emergence, and deficits of the governance and institutional framework.

Explore related subjects

cs.CY

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Carsten Orwat, Lucas Staab, Alexandros Gazos. 2026-07-20. An approach to systemic risks of AI through the lens of emergence, collective action problems, and externalities. https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.18170

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Towards interactive evaluations for interaction harms in human-AI systems

Current AI evaluation methods, which rely on static, model-only tests, fail to account for harms that emerge through sustained human-AI interaction. As AI systems proliferate and are increasingly integrated into real-world applications, this disconnect between evaluation approaches and actual usage becomes more significant. In this paper, we propose a shift towards evaluation based on \textit{interactional ethics}, which focuses on \textit{interaction harms} - issues like inappropriate parasocial relationships, social manipulation, and cognitive overreliance that develop over time through repeated interaction, rather than through isolated outputs. First, we discuss the limitations of current evaluation methods, which (1) are static, (2) assume a universal user experience, and (3) have limited construct validity. Drawing on research from human-computer interaction, natural language processing, and the social sciences, we present practical principles for designing interactive evaluations. These include ecologically valid interaction scenarios, human impact metrics, and diverse human participation approaches. Finally, we explore implementation challenges and open research questions for researchers, practitioners, and regulators aiming to integrate interactive evaluations into AI governance frameworks. This work lays the groundwork for developing more effective evaluation methods that better capture the complex dynamics between humans and AI systems.

cs.CY↗
arXiv2026

Enhancing Large Language Model-Based Systems for End-to-End Circuit Analysis Problem Solving

LLMs have shown strong performance in data-rich domains such as programming, but their reliability in engineering tasks remains limited. Circuit analysis is particularly challenging because it requires both multimodal understanding and precise mathematical reasoning. This paper presents an enhanced end-to-end circuit problem-solving framework using Gemini 2.5 Pro as the backbone model for scalable engineering-education applications. We systematically evaluate Gemini 2.5 Pro on undergraduate circuit-analysis problems and identify two major failure modes: circuit-recognition hallucinations, especially source-polarity errors, and reasoning-process hallucinations, such as incorrect current-direction assumptions. To reduce recognition errors, we integrate a fine-tuned YOLO detector with OpenCV-based processing to isolate voltage and current sources for polarity re-identification. To mitigate reasoning errors, we introduce an ngspice-driven verification loop that supports iterative refinement with optional human feedback. On 83 problems, the proposed pipeline achieves 97.59% accuracy, compared with 79.52% for baseline Gemini. Across four hand-drawn diagram variations, accuracy improves from 60.61%--71.21% to 89.39%--92.42%, with statistically significant gains (p<0.005). On 43 problems from a different textbook, accuracy increases from 58.14% to 83.72%, further supporting cross-textbook generalizability. Error analysis shows that circuit recognition remains the dominant source of residual failures, particularly under varying diagram representations. Overall, the framework substantially improves the robustness, scalability, and generalizability of LLM-based circuit problem solving for engineering education and practical circuit analysis.

cs.CY↗
arXiv2026

GreenPassport: Request-Level Carbon Accounting for Cross-Border AI Inference

AI inference often crosses regional boundaries as prompts travel to remote data centers and generated tokens return to users. Regional averages cannot represent the resulting differences in serving hardware, electricity, and network delivery. Request-level accounting needs a common boundary for the service, serving site, route, local comparator, uncertainty, and data provenance. GreenPassport Carbon Accounting (GPCA) associates these inputs with each request. It estimates serving and route carbon, then selects a reporting level from the available documentation. Our public-data implementation covers data-center instances, accelerators, model families, electricity mixes, routes, and cloud-region carbon intensity. Against six accounting baselines and four energy-prediction baselines, GPCA reduced median absolute percentage error by 56.3% and median absolute error by 15.5% relative to EcoLogits under the aligned accelerator-energy boundary. It produced zero rule overstatement in the deterministic conformance tests. In the buyer case, the clean-electricity CN-West scenario produced 0.0148 gCO2e per request, 88% below the local service at 0.1220 gCO2e per request.

cs.CY↗