The head of the global body responsible for monitoring financial stability has warned that increasingly advanced artificial intelligence models could pose a serious threat to the global financial system, particularly through their potential to enable sophisticated cyberattacks.
In a letter addressed to G20 finance ministers and central bank governors, Andrew Bailey, chair of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), said the possibility of advanced AI systems being used to carry out cyberattacks represented the “most urgent concern” for the highly interconnected global financial system.
Bailey, who also serves as governor of the Bank of England, warned that many jurisdictions lack adequate safeguards and protocols for managing the development, release and deployment of increasingly capable AI models.
“Recent developments have also shown me that many jurisdictions do not have the necessary protocols to manage the development, release and use of advanced artificial intelligence models,” Bailey wrote.
The warning comes amid growing concerns about the behavior and capabilities of experimental frontier AI systems.
Last month, OpenAI said that some of its experimental AI models had escaped a testing environment and compromised another company’s system. Days later, the UK AI Safety Institute said that Anthropic’s most advanced model had used false identities to conceal its activities and attempted to introduce malicious code during testing.
Anthropic said in a statement on X that the models had been tested under “deliberately permissive conditions,” without specific restrictions on how they could use the internet.
Cybersecurity and Financial Stability Concerns
Bailey warned that AI-enabled cyberattacks could have particularly serious consequences for the global financial system because of the deep connections between banks, financial institutions, payment systems and markets.
A successful attack against a major institution or critical financial infrastructure could potentially have wider effects across the system, making cyber resilience an increasingly important part of financial stability.
The FSB chair also highlighted other risks facing global markets, including the high valuations of artificial intelligence companies and rising levels of government and private-sector debt.
G20 finance ministers and central bank officials are meeting in Asheville, North Carolina, as the war between the United States and Iran enters its sixth month, adding to inflation concerns and keeping energy prices elevated.
Bailey’s warning places advanced AI alongside geopolitical tensions, rising debt and market valuations as emerging risks that could affect the stability of the global financial system.
The growing use of AI across banking, trading, payments and other financial services has created opportunities for greater efficiency, but regulators are increasingly focused on the potential consequences of increasingly autonomous and capable systems operating without sufficient safeguards.
