Ahead of their annual meeting, the World Economic Forum has claimed that the biggest short-term risk affecting the globe is misinformation and disinformation, driven by AI advancements.

In their Global Risks Report 2024, the WEF has disclosed the ten biggest risks for the next two years and the next ten years. While environmental fears have topped the list for the biggest risks of the next ten years, technology risks also found their place on both the short-term and long-term outlook.

Overall, the report was dismal, revealing a world “plagued by a duo of dangerous crises: climate and conflict.”

Behind these two overarching global threats is the undercurrent of rapidly evolving technological advancements and economic uncertainty exacerbating inequalities.

More than half (54%) of the respondents of the report expected a significant amount of instability and a moderate risk of global catastrophise just over the next two years.

Expanding this out to the next decade, the pessimism grows: nearly two thirds (63%) expect a stormy or turbulent status quo by 2034.

However, the top risk for the next two years is misinformation and disinformation, the report found, and is largely driven by AI advancements.

Extreme weather events came in second place, potentially reflecting the bias of current climate disasters affecting the poorest communities largely in the global south.

Misinformation and disinformation was directly linked by the report to AI: the WEF echoed fears that if AI got into the hands of bad actors, they could use it to drive false narratives, inciting conflict, crisis, and climate denial.

Over the next two years, the report states, “foreign and domestic actors alike will leverage misinformation and disinformation to widen societal and political divides”.

Several elections are to take place in the next two years as well, including in major economic powerhouses like India, the US, and the UK, only exacerbating this short term concern.

Extreme weather however, is the top concern for this current year, with 66% of the vote, with AI-generated misinformation and disinformation following behind at 53%.

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Societal and political polarisation (46%), the cost-of-living crisis (42%), and cyber-attacks (39%), rounded out the last of the list.

The looming threat of cyber-attacks have hit the global stage as international conflicts play out on both on the ground and in the cybersphere, heightening the importance of national cybersecurity.

Further, as the world moved evermore onto the online sphere, cyber-attacks became more frequent, and AI advancements have created new sophistication in ransomware and phishing attacks.

While AI is a driver of the most major threat in the next two years, over the course of the next decade the WEF considers it a threat in its own right.

By 2034, the WEF has listed the adverse outcomes of AI technologies as the sixth biggest threat to society, outdone by climate emergencies and misinformation.

These looming threats are not directly specified, whereas environmental crises increase in specificity as they become reality across different parts of the globe.