Information hazard

According to Bostrom, there are two defined major categories of information hazard. The first is the "adversarial hazard" which is where some information can be purposefully used by a bad actor to hurt others. The other category is where the harm is not purposeful, but merely an unintended consequence that harms the person who learns about it.

Bostrom also proposes several subsets of these major categories, including the following types:

• Data hazards: A piece of data that can be used to harm others, such as the DNA sequence of a lethal pathogen.
• Idea hazards: General ideas that can harm others if fulfilled. One example is the idea of "using a fission reaction to create a bomb". Knowing this idea alone can be enough for a well-resourced team to develop a nuclear bomb.{{Rp|page=3}}
• Knowing-too-much hazards: Information that, if known, can cause danger to the person who knows it. For example, in the 1600s, women who allegedly possessed knowledge of the occult or birth control methods were at a higher risk of being accused of witchcraft.{{Rp|page=9}}{{Cite book|last=Levack|first=B.P|title=The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe.|year=1987}}

Additionally, the availability of information on DNA sequences of diseases or the chemical makeup of toxins could lead to adversarial hazards, as bad actors could use this information in order to recreate these biohazards on their own.{{Cite journal |last1=Lewis |first1=Gregory |last2=Millett |first2=Piers |last3=Sandberg |first3=Anders |last4=Snyder-Beattie |first4=Andrew |last5=Gronvall |first5=Gigi |date=May 2019 |title=Information Hazards in Biotechnology |journal=Risk Analysis |language=en |volume=39 |issue=5 |pages=975–981 |doi=10.1111/risa.13235 |pmid=30419157 |bibcode=2019RiskA..39..975L |issn=0272-4332 |doi-access=free |pmc=6519142}} In 2018, a research paper led to media coverage by explaining how to synthesize a poxvirus.{{Cite journal |last=Esvelt |first=Kevin M. |date=2018-10-04 |editor-last=Coyne |editor-first=Carolyn B. |title=Inoculating science against potential pandemics and information hazards |journal=PLOS Pathogens |language=en |volume=14 |issue=10 |pages=e1007286 |doi=10.1371/journal.ppat.1007286 |issn=1553-7374 |pmc=6171951 |pmid=30286188 |doi-access=free}}{{Cite web |date=19 January 2018 |title=A paper showing how to make a smallpox cousin just got published. Critics wonder why |url=https://www.science.org/content/article/paper-showing-how-make-smallpox-cousin-just-got-published-critics-wonder-why |access-date=2025-01-04 |website=Science |language=en}}{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2018-02-19 |title=Horsepox synthesis: A case of the unilateralist’s curse? |url=https://thebulletin.org/2018/02/horsepox-synthesis-a-case-of-the-unilateralists-curse/ |access-date=2025-01-04 |website=Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists |language=en-US}}

The concept of information hazards is also relevant to information security. Many government, public, and private entities have information that could be classified as a data hazard that could harm others if leaked. This could be the result of an adversarial hazard or an idea hazard. To avoid this, many organizations implement security controls depending on their own needs or the needs laid out by regulatory bodies.{{Cite report |url=https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/sp/800/53/r5/upd1/final |title=Security and Privacy Controls for Information Systems and Organizations |last=Force |first=Joint Task |date=2020-12-10 |publisher=National Institute of Standards and Technology |issue=NIST Special Publication (SP) 800-53 Rev. 5 |language=en}}

Willful blindness is an attempt to avoid obscuring or misleading a case by avoiding the idea that a fact is true if it cannot be proven from the knowledge. This is an attempt to avoid information hazards that could harm a legal case by putting false or assumed information in the mind of the jury.{{fact|date=February 2025}}

The idea of forbidden knowledge that can harm the person who knows it is found in many stories in the 16th and 17th centuries, which imply or explicitly state that some knowledge is dangerous for the viewer or for others and is better left hidden.{{Cite journal |last=Ginzburg |first=Carlo |date=1976 |title=High and Low: The Theme of Forbidden Knowledge in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries |url=https://academic.oup.com/past/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/past/73.1.28 |journal=Past and Present |language=en |issue=73 |pages=28–41 |doi=10.1093/past/73.1.28 |issn=0031-2746|url-access=subscription }}

The idea of an information hazard overlaps with the idea of a harmful trend or social contagion. In it, knowledge of certain trends can result in their replication, such as in the case of certain viral trends that can be physically dangerous to those who attempt them.{{Cite web |title=Dangerous Social Media Challenges: Understanding Their Appeal to Kids |url=https://www.healthychildren.org/English/family-life/Media/Pages/Dangerous-Internet-Challenges.aspx |access-date=2023-11-14 |website=HealthyChildren.org |date=9 April 2018 |language=en}}

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• Censorship
• Classified information
• The Game (mind game)
• Information security
• Inquisition
• Jury nullification
• Knowledge (legal construct)
• Roko's basilisk
• Social media
• BLIT (short story)
• Suffering risks
• Mass shooting contagion
• Infinite Jest, "The Entertainment" therein
• Copycat suicide
• SCP Foundation, where articles commonly use this device

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{{Reflist|refs=

{{Cite journal |last=Bostrom |first=Nick |date=2011 |title=Information Hazards: A Typology of Potential Harms from Knowledge |url=https://www.nickbostrom.com/information-hazards.pdf |journal=Review of Contemporary Philosophy |volume=10 |pages=44–79}}

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Category:Hazards

Category:Information