Frontier AI models, such as those developed by OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) and Anthropic (ANTH.PVT), threaten a new realm of cyberattacks that could target and destabilize the global financial system, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said on Monday.
In a letter submitted to G20 financial leaders and central bank chiefs, published Monday by the Financial Stability Board — which Bailey chairs — the BOE governor wrote that frontier AI models are “showing increasingly sophisticated autonomy and problem-solving abilities, as well as threat capabilities.”
Those capabilities constitute a particularly strong threat to the global financial system, Bailey said, arguing that those risks posed by frontier AI “will not respect national borders.”
“The global financial system is highly interconnected, and cyber disruption can spread across jurisdictions through common technology providers, shared infrastructure, and cross-border financial activity,” Bailey wrote to the G20. “Frontier AI may have the ability materially to alter the speed, scale and economics of cyber risk, which could undermine market confidence system-wide.”
Many jurisdictions haven’t yet established protocols to deal with such a threat, Bailey said. Addressing those gaps, the BOE governor wrote, “should in my view be a priority and would benefit all sectors of the economy, including by supporting financial stability and economic growth.”
Bailey’s warning comes after steps by some of the US’s major financial institutions to do just that. The development of Anthropic’s most capable “Mythos” model prompted a range of concerns over its ability to identify and exploit vulnerabilities in systems previously thought secure.
While the model has not been opened for public use, a small collective of governments and major institutions has been given access to the model to use it themselves to identify security weaknesses. While the full list of participants hasn’t been published, JPMorgan Chase and Intercontinental Exchange have both been publicly confirmed as partners in what Anthropic has dubbed “Project Glasswing.”
