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6. Socioeconomic and Environmental3 - Other

Market Concentration and Infrastructure Dependencies:

Over-reliance on a limited number of dominant AI providers could create critical single points of failure across essential services. Market concentration in AI development may lead to scenarios where technical failures, cyber-attacks, or policy decisions by a few companies could simultaneously disrupt healthcare systems, financial services, transportation networks, and communication infrastructure, creating cascading failures across interconnected critical systems.

Source: MIT AI Risk Repositorymit1457

ENTITY

1 - Human

INTENT

2 - Unintentional

TIMING

3 - Other

Risk ID

mit1457

Domain lineage

6. Socioeconomic and Environmental

262 mapped risks

6.1 > Power centralization and unfair distribution of benefits

Mitigation strategy

1. Establish clear organizational policies defining maximum acceptable thresholds for total spend or critical workload concentration attributable to any single AI provider, and consequently mandate the implementation of a dual- or multi-sourcing model for all essential AI capabilities. 2. Require the design and deployment of AI systems leveraging open standards, open-source components, and abstraction layers to ensure data and model portability, thereby mitigating platform lock-in risks. 3. Develop and enforce a framework for continuous supplier relationship management, emphasizing collaborative alignment on business continuity planning (BCPs) and conducting regular, data-driven supplier risk audits.