IMF Chief identifies 2 major threats posed by AI to global economy

Overestimating the capabilities of AI and the risk of it escaping human control could undermine the global economy, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Thursday.

She said AI was currently the main driver of the global economy but warned that two factors could undermine this momentum.

“The first one is the Amara’s law. It says we overestimate the technological benefits in the beginning, in the short run. We underestimate them in the long run. But when we overestimate, that means we are enthusiastic, but then we are disappointed. Then we pull out, and then there is a big problem,” Georgieva said at a meeting of the IMF and the World Bank in Bangkok.

The second risk is technical in nature, she said.

“What if AI decides to run away from human control and does things that are very risky for financial stability. So to conclude, yes, the world economy has been resilient to multiple shocks, but this resilience is being now depleted,” Georgieva said.

On September 12, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for a global slowdown in the development of more powerful artificial intelligence models, citing safety concerns. US entrepreneur Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman supported the idea.

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