Research Summary: Assessing Company Contributions to Societal Resilience: Extending the Societal Capacity Assessment Framework to Agentic AI

The paper introduces a framework for assessing how companies deploying agentic AI contribute to societal resilience. It posits that these companies are institutional actors whose deployment decisions actively shape society's capacity to withstand and govern the consequences of agentic AI. The Societal Capacity Assessment Framework (SCAF) is adapted to measure these contributions by focusing on safer AI agent implementations.

Why it matters

This framework is strategically important as it provides a structured method for evaluating the broader societal impact of technology deployment, particularly for advanced AI systems. It allows for the operationalization of goals related to responsible technology integration and societal preparedness, shifting the focus from simply developing AI to ensuring its safe and resilient societal integration.

Key insights

• Companies deploying AI agents are considered institutional actors influencing societal structures and capacity.
• The deployment decisions of these companies directly impact society's ability to withstand and govern the consequences of agentic AI.
• Societal resilience can be enhanced through the design and promotion of safer implementations of AI agents.
• An existing indicator-based framework, the Societal Capacity Assessment Framework (SCAF), is adapted to quantify a company's contributions to societal resilience through its AI deployment decisions.

Source

arXiv — Computers and Society — https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.27238