The AI Threat Register: Governing Scenarios as Code

All courses / AI Threat / Module 6 / Chapter 32

Learning objectives

After the lesson the participant can:

• Apply the four inclusion conditions to decide whether a candidate belongs in the AI threat register.
• Write a register entry with scale, tropes, rung, label, exposure, influence, controls, owner, decision tier and triggers.
• Design triggers that are observable from a named source, tied to the grading and run in both directions.
• Draft a one-page board report with five rows and at most three decisions, without scores or heat maps.

Key concepts

AI threat register

A versioned record of what the organisation believes about each threat scenario, why, who acts and which observation would change its mind. It is not a forecast and not a ranking of fears.

Exposure and influence

Exposure records how badly the organisation would be affected, given controls in place; influence records how far it can change the likelihood of the scenario itself. Neither is a probability, and they lead to different actions.

No probability field

The schema deliberately omits a probability, because for most entries about machines beyond control a single figure would record a choice between camps of experts instead of a measurement. Rung and label take its place.

Trigger

An observation named in advance that reopens an entry, with someone assigned to watch for it. Good triggers are observable without interpretation, tied to the grading and include lowering triggers, so the register does not drift upwards with the news.

Calibration log

Notes made at each review on whether the previous grading was borne out, seen by the board yearly. It shows whether the register is systematically too alarmed or too calm.

Interactive exercises

Do them here and get feedback at once. Choose a card and then where it belongs, or drag it.

Teaching plan

Discussion

1. The board page never sums exposures into a score or presents a heat map. What would be lost if it did, and how would you explain the refusal to a board used to heat maps?
2. A register whose triggers can only raise concern stops being believed. What lowering triggers would you write for the entries your organisation worries about most?
3. The test of a good entry is that a reader who disagrees with it can say where: in the rung, the label, the exposure or the controls. Take an AI risk from your current register: does it pass that test?

Written exercise

Self-test

Choose an answer to see whether it is right, or open the answer below each question.

1. Why is T5 The intelligence explosion not itself an entry in the register?

   1. Speculative threats are excluded from the register
   2. The trope has already been refuted by the evidence
   3. Tropes are metadata on the specific scenario through which the organisation would be affected
   4. Only threats whose likelihood the organisation can influence directly may be entered in the register
   Show the answer

   C. Tropes are metadata on the specific scenario through which the organisation would be affected
   An entry must be a scenario with a plausible path to harm that can be graded and owned; the trope is listed in the tropes field. Threats beyond influence are held too, marked through the influence field.

2. In Hansa's register, why is THR-HM-12 labelled expected although it rests on a pattern at scale?

   1. The pattern at scale in automated judgement has since been shown to be a measurement error in the studies
   2. Entries about discrimination can never be labelled observable
   3. The management body asked for a lower label
   4. No unlawful outcome has been found in Hansa's own model, although the pattern is documented at scale
   Show the answer

   D. No unlawful outcome has been found in Hansa's own model, although the pattern is documented at scale
   Rung and label are recorded separately because the same rung can support different outlooks; the rung grades the evidence for the mechanism, the label the outlook for this organisation.

3. What does the one-page board report show in its fifth row?

   1. The tail of speculative, high-exposure entries with the decision rule and leading indicators
   2. A single summed risk score for the whole organisation
   3. A heat map of all entries by likelihood and impact, with the exposures summed into one score
   4. The names of staff who failed seeded-error drills
   Show the answer

   A. The tail of speculative, high-exposure entries with the decision rule and leading indicators
   Four rows follow the scales and the fifth holds the tail; the page reports movement, separates what can be influenced from what cannot and asks for at most three decisions.