Sam Altman is urging financial leaders to learn to surpass the very technology he helped create.
Speaking in front of a group of financial regulators and industry leaders on Tuesday, the CEO of ChatGpt Maker Openai said that financial companies need to either stay a step ahead of artificial intelligence or do a better job of risking losing customers' money.
“What scares me is that there are still financial institutions that accept voice prints as a certification to move a lot of money or do something else,” he said.
“It's crazy what we're still doing,” Altman said, “AI completely broke most of the ways people outside of passwords are authenticating now.”
Speaking at an event hosted by the Federal Reserve in Washington, DC, Altman warned what was called a “significant imminent fraud crisis” as a result of AI.
“Society has to deal with this more generally, but people have to change the way they interact, they will have to change the way they confirm,” he said, adding, “This is a big deal.”
During the Q&A session, Altman was asked what would keep him at night, and one of his answers involved a massive financial attack.
In that scenario, he predicted that someone, perhaps a US enemy, had used biological weapons to attack the US or gained powerful AI to “invade the financial system and take everyone's money.”
He said that it would be difficult to defend it, as the enemy AI is smarter than ours and therefore difficult to defeat.
Altman is not alone in his fear. Earlier this year, Accenture surveyed 600 bank cybersecurity leaders, with 80% saying they believe generative AI is bolstering hackers faster than banks can respond.
