Cognitive Security as an AI Safety Cause Area — LessWrong

As AI systems become more capable, the cognitive security of humans will be increasingly at risk. By cognitive security, I mean the ability of humans…

x Cognitive Security as an AI Safety Cause Area — LessWrong AI Frontpage 2026 Top Fifty: 11 % 156 Cognitive Security as an AI Safety Cause Area by jsteinhardt 25th May 2026 3 min read 18 156 As AI systems become more capable, the cognitive security of humans will be increasingly at risk. By cognitive security, I mean the ability of humans to maintain control over their beliefs and actions. Cognitive security could be compromised in several ways: AI could become very good at persuading people of arbitrary positions; interacting with AI could lead humans to lose touch with reality; and AIs could

saved by

• Elizabeth Qiu
• Adi Mehta
• Adani Abutto
• Seth Lifland

related reading

• The case for ensuring that powerful AIs are controlled — LessWronglesswrong.com
• The End-State Fallacy: Where Is AI Security Headed?endstatefallacy.com
• Without specific countermeasures, the easiest path to transformative AI likely leads to AI takeover — LessWronglesswrong.com
• AI Induced Psychosis: A shallow investigation — LessWronglesswrong.com
• Recommendations for Technical AI Safety Research Directionsalignment.anthropic.com
• AI Control: Improving Safety Despite Intentional Subversion — LessWronglesswrong.com
• AI Safety for Fleshy Humans: a whirlwind touraisafety.dance
• Brain dump on the diversity of AI risk | Jascha’s blogsohl-dickstein.github.io
• The Artificial Selftheartificialself.ai
• The Case Against AI Control Research — LessWronglesswrong.com
• [2507.11473] Chain of Thought Monitorability: A New and Fragile Opportunity for AI Safetyarxiv.org
• AI Safety Seems Hard to Measurecold-takes.com