Yuval Noah Harari: AI will take over the financial system | The Economist

AIs will take over. the financial system. The financial history of the world. is the history of how humans invent. more and more sophisticated. financial devices. in order to build. trust between themselves. Money in essence. is a very creative, imaginative. way to build trust between strangers. I go to the market. I meet a stranger. that I never met in my life. I give her a piece of worthless gold, because you can't eat or wear gold,

it's worthless, or a piece of paper. and she trusts it. and because of that. she gives me bread. Now the financial. inventions of humankind. became more and more sophisticated. so that today very few people. understand the financial system. You need to understand. enormous amounts of data. and very complex. mathematical functions to understand. the bond market. This is something. our brain struggles with. for AIs it's easy.

So increasingly humans. will give AIs control. of financial decisions. AIs will come up. with new financial devices. far more sophisticated. than bonds and stocks. And we will not be able to. understand it anymore. Just as cows don't understand. cheques or stocks, even though these things. control their lives. Will it be all that different. to the financial system today? We still have some humans.

who hopefully understand. what is happening. in the financial system. And the human brain. is still the boundary of. where the financial system. can develop. But in ten years. when we have entrusted. AIs with the financial system. no human on the planet... Like there is a financial crash. and advisers are. running to the president. or the prime minister. and saying the market is collapsing.

We don't understand why. We know we have to do something. The AI said: “Do X”. We have no idea. why the AI said: “Do X”. but we just have to believe it. because we don't. understand what's happening.