We managed financial crises. AI is a risk of a different kind.

By Robert E. Rubin and Henry M. Paulson Jr. for The Washington Post

In the Washington Post, Robert E. Rubin and Henry M. Paulson Jr., two former Treasury Secretaries, write that they have been involved in financial markets for decades—and have navigated market disruptions and misplaced risk. Now, they express their concern that incentives are not aligned to protect humans from the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI).

Rubin and Paulson suggest it is difficult to remain objective about risk when AI developers and Wall Street firms have so much at stake in the rush for AI advances. Moreover, governments do not fully understand such quickly advancing technology. In such circumstances, self-restraint and self-regulation will not suffice. And warnings are often met with the response that the United States cannot afford to lose the AI race to China. Rubin and Paulson urge the United States and China to work toward an AI Cooperation Treaty, drawing on the history of nuclear arms control between Washington and Moscow. They also urge action domestically by the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, an interagency panel that has successfully confronted earlier risks, including by convening the private sector. They conclude that AI risks have no easy answer, but doing nothing is not an option.