Yuval Noah Harari: AI could cause financial disaster

Famous writer and historian, Yuval Noah Hararimade a powerful reflection around AIHowever, his views went beyond the existential, but were rather focused on one of the driving forces of humanity: economics.

In a conversation with the English edition of The Guardian, the author Sapienshe actually started his talk on a more sociological note.

“In the case of AI, we are talking about a large number of dangerous scenarios, each of which has a relatively small probability, which together… pose an existential threat to the survival of human civilization.”

“AI is different from all previous technologies in human history because it is the first technology that can make decisions on its own, create new ideas on its own, learn and develop on its own. Almost by definition, this is extremely difficult for a person, even for people who created technologyanticipate all potential dangers and problems,” the historian added.

But for Yuval Noah Harari, the main danger is what might happen to the global economy.

“Finance is an ideal sector for artificial intelligence systems because it’s just data”—and a potential source of a major AI-created crisis. “What would happen if AI not only gained greater control over the global financial system, but also began to create new financial devices that only AI could understand and that no human could understand?” Harari said.

“AI has the potential to create financial devices that are orders of magnitude more complex. And imagine a situation where we have a financial system that no one can understand and therefore cannot regulate,” he said. “And then the financial crisis comes and no one understands what’s happening.”