AI Governance Engineer
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Dual use

By Updated

The capacity of the same AI capability to serve harmful ends as well as legitimate ones, for example a toxicity model inverted to propose toxic molecules 1. It is answered with misuse threat models, red-team cases for harmful uses of legitimate capability and runtime detection.

Developed in
ch. 11, Eight characteristics that break classic IT governance
Chapters
ch. 11, AI Defined
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.

Dual use: mentions per chapter3 mentions of the term across 2 of the 23 chapters of the Body of Knowledge; the chapters the glossary cross-references are drawn solid.Cross-referenced chapterOther chapter11 AI Defined: 2 mentions11 AI Defined215 Deployment: 1 mention15 Deployment1No mentions in the other 21 chaptersSource: the Body of Knowledgev0.5.0
Dual use: mentions per chapter3 mentions of the term across 2 of the 23 chapters of the Body of Knowledge; the chapters the glossary cross-references are drawn solid.Cross-referenced chapterOther chapter0001020304050607081011 AI Defined: 2 mentions21112131415 Deployment: 1 mention1151617181920212223Source: 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 Dual use per chapter
ChapterMentionsCross-referenced
00 Preface0No
01 Definition0No
02 Why Now0No
03 Values & Principles0No
04 The Stack0No
05 Patterns0No
06 The Role0No
07 Maturity Model0No
08 Regulatory Map0No
10 Reading List0No
11 AI Defined2Yes
12 Governance Program0No
13 Risk Management0No
14 Development0No
15 Deployment1No
16 Fairness & XAI0No
17 Incidents0No
18 EU AI Act0No
19 Privacy & AI0No
20 Existing Law0No
21 AI Laws Worldwide0No
22 Principles & Standards0No
23 AI Agents0No
Dual use: related terms and patternsThe term at the centre; related terms on solid edges, the terms it is contrasted with on dashed edges, and the patterns that use it most in the colour of their layer.RelatedDual useRelated terms (3)Catastrophic forgetting · RelatedCatastrophic forgettingOpacity · RelatedOpacityThreat model (AI) · RelatedThreat model (AI)
Dual use: related terms and patternsThe term at the centre; related terms on solid edges, the terms it is contrasted with on dashed edges, and the patterns that use it most in the colour of their layer.RelatedRelated terms (3)Catastrophic forgetting · RelatedCatastrophic forgettingOpacity · RelatedOpacityThreat model (AI) · RelatedThreat model (AI)Dual use
The term's neighbourhood Terms related to this one on solid edges, terms it is often confused with on dashed edges, and the patterns that use it most in the colour of their layer. Follow a dashed edge to check the distinction before you use either term.
Neighbourhood as a table
Neighbourhood of Dual use
FamilyItemRelation
Related termsCatastrophic forgettingRelated
Related termsOpacityRelated
Related termsThreat model (AI)Related
  • Catastrophic forgetting

    The tendency of neural networks to lose earlier competence when trained on new tasks.

  • Opacity

    The inability of a person to follow how a system reached an output.

  • Threat model (AI)

    A versioned record of what can go wrong with an AI system and what is done about it: data flows and trust boundaries, threats per element from STRIDE and…

Sources

  1. [1] "Dual use of artificial-intelligence-powered drug discovery" (an inverted toxicity model proposed about 40,000 candidate toxic molecules in under six hours; Nature Machine Intelligence). Urbina, Lentzos, Invernizzi and Ekins (PubMed Central). 2022-03-07. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9544280/ (verified: primary)

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

Cite this term

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

BibTeX

@misc{aige2026dualuse,
  author  = {Jorge García Aibar},
  title   = {{Dual use}},
  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/dual-use}
}