Artificial intelligence systems are now deployed at scale across sectors, accompa- nied by a growing number of real-world incidents ranging from misinformation and cybercrime to autonomous-system failures. Databases of AI incidents index these events, but they cannot measure “risk” (i.e., a joint measure of likelihood and severity) without additional data regarding the prevalence of risk-associated systems and their incident reporting rates. As a result, policymakers, companies, and the general public lack a means to weigh the benefits of AI against their in-context risks. Inspired by public-health processes, which presume noisy and incomplete disease surveillance, we identify six phases of incident emergence. We demonstrate the framework through a detailed case study of autonomous vehicles, whose mandatory reporting requirements produces reliable incident-rate ground truth expressed in distance traveled. The case study shows that an informed panel of domain experts (e.g., self-driving experts) can combine their domain expertise, incident data, and a collection of statistical and visualization tools to arrive at incident phase determinations serving public needs. We further demonstrate the approach with a deepfake incident case study and chart a path for future research in incident phase determination.

Artificial intelligence poses many risks, ranging from familiar present-day harms to unprecedented and potentially catastrophic ones. Effective risk management requires prioritization: we must understand which risks are most severe, who is most vulnerable, and who is most responsible for addressing them. We report results from a three-round Delphi study conducted late 2025 with 272 international AI experts. Experts rated 24 AI risks on harm probability and severity, sector and actor vulnerability, actor responsibility, and overall concern. Experts estimated the five most severe harms in the next 5 years were likely to come from dangerous capabilities, competitive dynamics, weapons & cyberattacks (including CBRNE), power centralization, and false information. In a business-as-usual scenario, experts judged 18 of 24 risks as having a more than 10% probability of catastrophic outcomes (e.g., more than 1 million deaths or more than USD 100B in financial loss) in the next 5 years (2025-2030). In a scenario where pragmatic mitigations are implemented, experts still judged five risks as having a more than 10% probability of catastrophic outcomes: dangerous capabilities, weapons & cyberattacks, environmental harm, inequality & unemployment, and power centralization. All 24 risks were judged as being more than 5% likely to cause catastrophic outcomes. AI users and the general public were judged the most vulnerable to these risks, but experts assigned the highest responsibility for addressing them to generalpurpose AI developers and governance actors (including governments, regulators, and standards bodies). Across most risks, experts identified information, finance, and national security as the most vulnerable sectors. These findings can guide AI risk prioritization and clarify expert expectations about who should bear responsibility for mitigation.

The risks posed by artificial intelligence (AI) concern academics, auditors, policymakers, AI companies, and the public. Researchers, policymakers, and technology companies discuss AI risks using inconsistent terminology—the same word may describe different problems, while different words describe identical concerns. This fragmentation impedes coordinated responses to AI challenges. We address this by creating the AI Risk Repository: a living database of 1,725 risks extracted from 74 existing taxonomies and frameworks. We organize these risks using two complementary classification systems. The Causal Taxonomy classifies risks by their origins: which entity causes them (human or AI), whether intentional, and when they occur (before or after deployment). The Domain Taxonomy classifies risks by their effects across seven areas, from discrimination and privacy violations to misinformation and weapons development. This shared reference enables more coordinated approaches to discussing, researching, auditing, and governing AI systems across sectors and jurisdictions.