The International Monetary Fund warned that advanced AI tools could threaten global financial stability, calling for more international cooperation before things get properly messy.
“IMF analysis suggests that extreme cyber-incident losses could trigger funding strains, raise solvency concerns, and disrupt broader markets,” the lender warned in a new report.
The study’s authors pointed to the risks created by a global financial system wired together like a dodgy office network. Advanced AI models could “dramatically reduce” the time and cost needed to exploit vulnerabilities.
The warning came weeks after AI outfit Anthropic said its unreleased “Mythos” model was scarily good at finding and exploiting weaknesses.
The model was especially efficient at spotting vulnerabilities that developers and users had not previously noticed. In the hands of hackers, these “zero-day” flaws are nasty little prizes.
White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told Fox News that an “all-government” and private sector effort was testing the model to stop it from harming US firms or government systems.
A day earlier, the US government announced a policy shift that would give it access to tech giants’ new AI models before their release, so officials could poke them first.
The IMF warned that emerging and developing countries, “which often have more severe resource constraints, may be disproportionately exposed to attackers targeting regions with weaker defences.”
The authors said the risks were systemic, crossed sectors and carried the threat of contagion. Reliance on a small number of platforms and cloud providers could increase “the impact of any single exploited weakness.”
“Defences will inevitably be breached, so resilience must also be a priority, specifically to limit how far incidents spread and ensure rapid recovery,” the report said.
IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva warned that the global financial system was not ready for AI-driven cybersecurity threats.
“We are very keen to see more attention to the guardrails that are necessary to protect financial stability in a world of AI,” Georgieva told CBS News, calling for global collaboration on the issue.
