Skip to content
NJIT AI Safety Association
About
Fellowships
Intro to AI Safety FellowshipTechnical AI Safety Fellowship
Resources
About
Fellowships
Intro to AI Safety FellowshipTechnical AI Safety Fellowship
Resources

← Intro fellowship curriculum

Week 4 — Threat Models

How could alignment failures lead to large-scale harm? We’ll examine takeover arguments, compare plans for reducing misalignment risk, and discuss a narrative scenario. Supplementary resources explore misuse, gradual disempowerment, and competing views of AI risk.

Open the Week 4 curriculum in Google Docs ↗

Core resources

  • Statement on AI Risk (Center for AI Safety, 2023) ↗
  • AI Could Defeat All Of Us Combined (Holden Karnofsky, 2022) ↗
  • Plans A, B, C, and D for misalignment risk (Ryan Greenblatt, 2025) ↗
  • We're Not Ready for Superintelligence (AI in Context, 2025) — video ↗

Recommended resources

  • AI 2027 (AI Futures Project, 2025) — scenario ↗
  • AI 2040 — alternative scenarios for Plans A–D ↗
  • Gradual Disempowerment: Systemic Existential Risks from Incremental AI Development (Kulveit et al., 2025) ↗
  • AI-enabled coups: How a small group could use AI to seize power (Forethought, 2025) ↗
  • AI as Normal Technology (Arvind Narayanan & Sayash Kapoor, 2025) — critical perspective ↗

Further resources

  • Is Power-Seeking AI an Existential Risk? (Joe Carlsmith, 2022) ↗
  • International AI Safety Report 2026 — executive summary and risk sections ↗
  • The Operational Risks of AI in Large-Scale Biological Attacks (RAND, 2024) ↗
NJIT AI Safety Association
Join our mailing list →