From the New York Times bestselling author of The New Great Depression and Currency Wars, a telling prediction for how AI will endanger global economic markets and security
In November 2022, OpenAI released GPT-4 in a chatbot form to the public. In just two months, it claimed 100 million users--the fastest app to ever reach this benchmark. Since then, AI has become an all-consuming topic, popping up on the news, in ads, on your messenger apps, and in conversations with friends and family. But as AI becomes ubiquitous and grows at an ever-increasing pace, what does it mean for the financial markets?
In MoneyGPT, Wall Street veteran and former advisor to the Department of Defense James Rickards paints a comprehensive picture of the danger AI poses to the global financial order, and the insidious ways in which AI will threaten national security. Rickards shows how, while AI is touted to increase efficiency and lower costs, its global implementation in the financial world will actually cause chaos, as selling begets selling and bank runs happen at lightning speed. AI further benefits malicious actors, Rickards argues, because without human empathy or instinct to intervene, threats like total nuclear war that once felt extreme are now more likely. And throughout all this, we must remain vigilant on the question of whose values will be promoted in the age of AI. As Rickards predicts, these systems will fail when we rely on them the most.
MoneyGPT shows that the danger is not that AI will malfunction, but that it will function exactly as intended. The peril is not in the algorithms, but in ourselves. And it's up to us to intervene with old-fashioned human logic and common sense before it's too late.
PRAISE FOR THE WORKS OF JAMES RICKARDS:
"The author argues persuasively...[and] offers an eminently sensible (though costly and surely difficult) solution...An alarming but not alarmist book that deserves serious attention from economists and policymakers."
--Kirkus Reviews
"Rickards provides a wonderful antidote to some of the insanity too often evident around the study of monetary questions...A valuable contribution to our economic discourse. One can but hope that our senators and representatives find their way to it."
--Forbes
"A bracing collection of salvos...Let's just hope that the next thirty years are less bleak than Mr. Rickards expects."
--The Financial Times
"Rickards has gone and done it again."
--Wealth Briefing Asia
"One of the scariest books I've read this year... [Rickards's] intelligent reasoning soon convinced me that we have more to fear than fear itself. The pieces, although disparate, fit together snugly, as in one of those mystery jigsaw puzzles that come with clues in lieu of cover art. The picture that emerges is dark yet comprehensive and satisfying."
--Bloomberg Businessweek
"What we assumed was firm ground under our feet is more like the narrowing point of a precipice."
--Charles A. Duelfer, former special adviser to the director of the CIA, author of Hide and Seek: The Search for Truth in Iraq