Cultural Alignment

Exploring real AI risks through the lens of pop culture

Still from The Fate of the Furious illustrating Cipher’s Zombie CarsScene still / The Fate of the Furious

Cipher’s Zombie Cars

Cipher hijacks hundreds of networked cars, drives them through New York as a coordinated fleet, and rains vehicles from a parking structure to stop a motorcade.

Uniform remote access turns many independent consumer devices into synchronized destructive actuators, converting one exploit into a city-scale correlated failure.

The mass takeover is greatly exaggerated, and the cars do not make independent decisions.

AI Risk families

This scenario is an example of the following types of AI risk.
  1. Malicious use
  2. Security
  3. Systemic

AI safety concepts

This scenario is related to the following AI safety concepts.
  1. Infrastructure Dependence
  2. Autonomous Weapons
  3. Algorithmic Monoculture
  4. Cyberattacks