AI Governance Engineer
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AI harm

By Updated

A negative consequence of building or using an AI system for a person, a group, an organisation, society or the environment. The book names each harm by the level it lands on, its mechanism, a testable failure mode and the control that catches it, mapped to the MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy 1.

Developed in
Harms atlas
Chapters
ch. 03, Values & Principles
Source
1 numbered reference, listed below

Where it is used

2 chapters of the Body of Knowledge use the term. Each link opens the first section that does.

AI harm: mentions per chapter2 mentions of the term across 2 of the 23 chapters of the Body of Knowledge; the chapters the glossary cross-references are drawn solid.Other chapterCross-referenced, not named03 Values & Principles010 Reading List: 1 mention10 Reading List117 Incidents: 1 mention17 Incidents1No mentions in the other 20 chaptersSource: the Body of Knowledgev0.5.0
AI harm: mentions per chapter2 mentions of the term across 2 of the 23 chapters of the Body of Knowledge; the chapters the glossary cross-references are drawn solid.Other chapterCross-referenced, not named00010203040506070810 Reading List: 1 mention11011121314151617 Incidents: 1 mention117181920212223Source: the Body of Knowledge v0.5.0
Mentions per chapter How often each chapter names the term, with the chapters the glossary cross-references drawn solid. The longest bar is where to read the term in use; bars spread across many chapters mark a term that runs through the discipline.
Mentions as a table
Mentions of AI harm per chapter
ChapterMentionsCross-referenced
00 Preface0No
01 Definition0No
02 Why Now0No
03 Values & Principles0Yes
04 The Stack0No
05 Patterns0No
06 The Role0No
07 Maturity Model0No
08 Regulatory Map0No
10 Reading List1No
11 AI Defined0No
12 Governance Program0No
13 Risk Management0No
14 Development0No
15 Deployment0No
16 Fairness & XAI0No
17 Incidents1No
18 EU AI Act0No
19 Privacy & AI0No
20 Existing Law0No
21 AI Laws Worldwide0No
22 Principles & Standards0No
23 AI Agents0No
  • AI system

    For governance, the object the AI definition brings into scope.

Sources

  1. [1] The AI Risk Repository: a meta-review, database, and taxonomy of risks from artificial intelligence (Domain Taxonomy of 7 domains and 24 subdomains; CC BY 4.0). Slattery, Saeri, Grundy et al., Patterns (Cell Press). 2026. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patter.2026.101517 (verified: primary)

Definitions of legal terms paraphrase the cited text, which governs. Dated statements are as of .

Cite this term

García Aibar, J. (2026). AI harm. In AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis & Body of Knowledge (v0.5.0), Glossary. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22956197. https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/ai-harm. CC BY 4.0

BibTeX

@misc{aige2026aiharm,
  author  = {Jorge García Aibar},
  title   = {{AI harm}},
  note    = {Glossary, AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis \& Body of Knowledge, version 0.5.0},
  year    = {2026},
  doi     = {10.5281/zenodo.22956197},
  url     = {https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/ai-harm}
}