Is the AI bubble about to burst? And could the trillion-dollar investment boom trigger the next global financial crisis?
Gary Gensler, the former head of America’s financial regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), warns that a major downturn in AI investment could be just 18 to 30 months away, potentially putting banks, pensions and the wider global economy at risk.
In this episode of The Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy speaks to Gensler about why he believes the AI boom is unsustainable, whether the world could face another financial crisis like 2008, and what happens when the enormous debts funding AI data centres come due.
They also discuss Donald Trump’s approach to financial regulation, his family’s involvement in cryptocurrency and prediction markets, and whether America’s financial watchdogs are still capable of holding the powerful to account.
Gensler, now a professor at MIT and host of the podcast Power and Consequences, also explains why he believes the risks posed by increasingly powerful AI systems are real, despite Trump’s dismissal of AI safety concerns.