An A.I.-Generated Spoof Rattles the Markets: Report

AI Pentagon Explosion: For a brief moment on Monday, stocks declined as investor apprehension was fueled by a disturbing image of black smoke rising from what appeared to be a government building near to the Pentagon.

Markets soon rebounded as experts instantly dismissed the image as a fake, probably put together using artificial intelligence. But it highlighted one of the main worries that drove the government's haste to control artificial intelligence (AI): that the technology may be exploited to create panic and spread misinformation, perhaps leading to catastrophic results.

According to Bloomberg, it might have been the first time an artificial intelligence-generated visual affected markets. The image first circulated on Facebook and claimed that an explosion had been detected close to the Pentagon. The financial news website ZeroHedge and the Kremlin-controlled RT were among the accounts with significant followings who swiftly shared it to Twitter.

The image was quickly disproved by online investigators, and shortly after that ZeroHedge and RT removed it from their accounts, while Facebook restricted access to the original post. Nevertheless, the clip serves as a reminder of how quickly disinformation may spread, especially when using reputable social media sites.

Regulators have warned about exactly this kind of problem. The head of the SEC, Gary Gensler, stated last week that malicious actors could utilise artificial intelligence to prey on the "fragility" of financial institutions.

Furthermore, the F.T.C. has warned that artificial intelligence-generated deep faked pictures and voice cloning systems may be exploited to deceive individuals in new types of fraud schemes.

Threats that are more severe might be coming. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI whose Senate testimony on artificial intelligence captivated Washington last week, and two other top lieutenants issued a dire warning in a blog post on Monday. They claimed that within a decade, these systems would develop "superintelligence."

They said that as a response, international governments should think about setting up a regulator similar to the International Atomic Energy Agency that would be able to examine, audit, and, if required, impose restrictions on systems that go beyond a certain level of capacity.

It's important to note that A.I. doesn't necessarily hurt stocks. Investors have increased the market capitalisation of companies involved in technology, including as Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, and the chipmaker Nvidia.

According to Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, seven stocks have accounted for 85% of the gains in the S&P 500 this year as of last week. All but one member of that group has a sizable investment in AI.

Even so, many of those stocks are vulnerable to A.I.-driven disruption. At a conference in San Francisco on Monday, Bill Gates suggested why that could be: “You will never go to a search site again,” he said. “You will never go to a productivity site. You’ll never go to Amazon again.”