Marginal versus Absolute Risk Basis

NIKOLAI proposes Marginal versus Absolute Risk Basis as a controlled value naming the baseline against which a stated risk is measured -- e.g. a no-AI world, publicly available tools as of a stated date, other developers' current models, or an industry-wide hypothetical where all developers matched the reporting developer's practices. This is a NIKOLAI editorial proposal added to the candidate list (ALIGNMENT-MATRIX.md §5) because at least four incompatible baselines are in active use across the corpus with no shared vocabulary connecting them, which the source material itself flags as enabling a collective-action failure ('risk creep') if left unnamed.

This is CASRAI's own proposed definition, not a definition any named organisation has agreed to. See what NIKOLAI is and is not.

Source of record

Where this definition comes from

Anthropic Risk Report, August 2026, §1.1
“"Marginal risk": "the level of risk our systems pose over and above the risks posed by other AI developers' systems"; "Absolute risk": "the level of risk that would be posed industry-wide, if all AI developers had models and practices similar to ours" (§1.1).”
https://www-cdn.anthropic.com/f61d49fa5596956a5dec75fea0e973bf6a6a8378/Redacted%20Risk%20Report%20August%202026%20.pdf
Frontier Model Forum: Risk Taxonomy and Thresholds, s3.2
“"Marginal Risk Assessments: developers would consider the additional risk their model adds beyond what's already possible in the ecosystem"; "Risk creep: where multiple models, each introducing only small marginal increases ... may collectively create significant risk growth over time" (s3.2).”
https://www.frontiermodelforum.org/technical-reports/risk-taxonomy-and-thresholds/

Crosswalk

How named organisations use this concept

Every row below is a shadow mapping. It is CASRAI's own reading of a published document. No lab, evaluator or regulator named here has declared, endorsed, or been consulted on this mapping. That will change only when an organisation files its own Mapping Declaration — see the non-endorsement policy.

Organisation	Their term, as published	Match	Source
Anthropic Anthropic Risk Report, August 2026	“"Marginal risk": "the level of risk our systems pose over and above the risks posed by other AI developers' systems"; "Absolute risk": "the level of risk that would be posed industry-wide, if all AI developers had models and practices similar to ours" (§1.1).”	exact confidence: high	Anthropic Risk Report, August 2026
OpenAI OpenAI Preparedness Framework v2	“Marginal-risk adjustment if another developer releases a comparable model "without instituting comparable safeguards" (§4.3). "Baseline risk: the baseline risk from other deployments ..." (§4.2). Bio High is measured "relative to unlimited access to baseline of tools available in 2021" (Table 1).”	close confidence: high	OpenAI Preparedness Framework v2
Google DeepMind Google DeepMind Frontier Safety Framework v3.1	“"(e.g. if other models are similarly capable and have few mitigations, then the marginal risk added by our external deployment is likely low)" (s.1.3.5). Uplift baseline: "we intend this to mean relative to a baseline without generative AI" (fn 8).”	close confidence: high	Google DeepMind Frontier Safety Framework v3.1
Meta Meta Advanced AI Scaling Framework v2	“"Net new: The outcome cannot currently be realized as described ... with existing tools and resources but without access to general-purpose AI." (§3.2)”	close confidence: high	Meta Advanced AI Scaling Framework v2
Frontier Model Forum Frontier Model Forum: Risk Taxonomy and Thresholds	“"Marginal Risk Assessments: developers would consider the additional risk their model adds beyond what's already possible in the ecosystem"; "Risk creep: where multiple models, each introducing only small marginal increases ... may collectively create significant risk growth over time"; "Static Historical Standards" (s3.2).”	exact confidence: high	Frontier Model Forum: Risk Taxonomy and Thresholds

Related, not mapped

Pointers that are not crosswalk claims

These sources mention this concept but do not define or map it clearly enough to count as a crosswalk row — noted here so the research is visible without overstating it as a mapping.

EU GPAI Code of Practice
RL -- a comparative-baseline exemption mechanism related to, but structurally distinct from, a marginal/absolute risk basis; recorded as a pointer, not a mapping.
EU GPAI Code of Practice, Safety and Security Chapter
California SB 53
RL -- a publicly-accessible-information carve-out, conceptually adjacent to a 'baseline of publicly available tools' but stated as a legal exclusion, not a risk-basis definition.
California SB 53

Divergence

Where sources materially disagree

Four different baselines are in active use across the corpus: OpenAI's 2021-tools baseline; Google DeepMind's no-generative-AI baseline; Anthropic's and OpenAI's other-developers'-current-models baseline; and Anthropic's industry-wide hypothetical. Frontier Model Forum names the collective-action failure ('risk creep') that a purely marginal basis permits when every developer measures only against its immediate competitors rather than a fixed historical point. NIKOLAI's crosswalk keeps these four baselines as distinct controlled values rather than treating 'marginal risk' as one interoperable term.