According to Gary Gensler, institutions could reach a point where overreliance on AI leads to a financial crisis.
United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler spoke on artificial intelligence (AI), mainly using examples from a 2013 movie rather than recent chatbots and photo rendering developments.
In prepared remarks for the Yale Law School on Feb. 13, Gensler referenced the movie Her, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson, to highlight AI’s potential benefits and risks in finance and the law. Johansson was the voice of an AI system that falls in love with Phoenix’s character — a fictional example that could threaten financial stability, according to the SEC chair.
“Imagine it wasn’t Scarlett Johansson, but it was some base model or data source on which 8,316 financial institutions were relying,” said Gensler. “That’s what we may face in finance [...] AI may play a central role in the after-action reports of a future financial crisis.”
