Godfather of Ai

kippo1

Hi
just watched a video where Geoffrey Hinton was talking about the risks of Ai and especially super Ai

one of the risks he put forward was the increase of bank cyber attacks and he said he has at least 3 different bank accounts to mitigate what he think is going to be an increasing cyber attack on banks once super Ai is fully developed

Another risk he outlined which he didn't have an answer for was if and when a share dealing/pension platform get hacked and the hacker sells your shares would you ever get your money back

Section62

kippo1 said:

Hi
just watched a video where Geoffrey Hinton was talking about the risks of Ai and especially super Ai

one of the risks he put forward was the increase of bank cyber attacks and he said he has at least 3 different bank accounts to mitigate what he think is going to be an increasing cyber attack on banks once super Ai is fully developed

Another risk he outlined which he didn't have an answer for was if and when a share dealing/pension platform get hacked and the hacker sells your shares would you ever get your money back

Why does he think that is any different to having a bank account 'hacked'?

If anything, 'hacking' a bank account would be easier, as the cash is sitting there ready to transfer.  Selling shares/funds usually means a delay for settlement to take place.

Good advice to have accounts with multiple banks though - not necessarily because of the risk of 'super' AI - but more mundane things like someone in IT support applying an untested upgrade or a cleaner pulling a plug, could temporarily limit access to your money if you only have one bank account.

kippo1

I think what he was worried about was if your bank account was hacked you would get your £85k back but if you had £1 million in shares and got your account hacked and lost the lot he wasn't sure if you would be compensated

masonic

kippo1 said:

I think what he was worried about was if your bank account was hacked you would get your £85k back but if you had £1 million in shares and got your account hacked and lost the lot he wasn't sure if you would be compensated

If someone got into your account and sold all your shares that would be bad, but you'd still have the proceeds. If they then wait a couple of working days for the trades to settle and withdrew the money to your linked account (assuming the account wasn't a SIPP), that would be bad, but you'd still have the money. I don't know if ISA status could be restored in such a situation, potentially it could as you didn't withdraw the money from the ISA. You'd have to not notice any of this activity.

So then the fraudster would need to compromise your bank account, set up a new payee and send the money, and get through the inevitable AML and source of funds checks. Then move the money somewhere where it cannot be traced. If they could do this without you being grossly negligent, then the bank would be obliged to refund you, and only if this drove them into insolvency would the FSCS and £85k limit come into play.

None of this requires "super AI", but there are lots of effective safeguards in place if the account holder exercises reasonable care. At the point it becomes easy, then investment providers would have no choice but to suspend trading and withdrawals until such time as fraudulent trades could be effectively blocked. If the issues were more widespread than that and unstoppable, then global financial markets would collapse and financial assets wouldn't matter, we'd have no choice but to switch off and regress to a barter system.

There are much more serious risks you could occupy your time worrying about, such as AI gaining control of nuclear weaponry. And easier ways to obtain wealth, like cracking large bitcoin wallets. However, there are probably better pastimes than worrying about dystopian futures.

mebu60

Section62 said:

kippo1 said:

Hi
just watched a video where Geoffrey Hinton was talking about the risks of Ai and especially super Ai

one of the risks he put forward was the increase of bank cyber attacks and he said he has at least 3 different bank accounts to mitigate what he think is going to be an increasing cyber attack on banks once super Ai is fully developed

Another risk he outlined which he didn't have an answer for was if and when a share dealing/pension platform get hacked and the hacker sells your shares would you ever get your money back

Good advice to have accounts with multiple banks though - not necessarily because of the risk of 'super' AI - but more mundane things like someone in IT support applying an untested upgrade or a cleaner pulling a plug, could temporarily limit access to your money if you only have one bank account.

I have current accounts with three banks but only a minor amount of 'dead' money sitting in two of them. If my main bank was compromised I'm not sure my other two accounts would be much use for cash, regular payments in, DDs, SOs, nominated accounts, etc. The main reason I have them is in case my main bank decides they don't like me any more and I have to make alternative arrangements pdq. They're also useful if you need to cycle cash to meet account requirements. And for getting cashback offers by switching.  

kempiejon

I've a few current accounts, a few savings account, a dozen credit cards,  x SIPP, 3 x ISA and premium bonds hopefully squeeze me though any interruption to service. Of course it makes me massively more likely to be hit by something with so many accounts to possibly be affected. I've planned like this for decades but not to mitigate AI threats specifically.
Hopefully my nominee accounts are ringfenced. The question was asked if and when a share dealing/pension platform get hacked and the hacker sells your shares would you ever get your money back. Not sure of the top of my head on the specifics of FCA protections and nominee status if that happens but I'm fairly confident.

booneruk

kippo1 said:

Hi
just watched a video where Geoffrey Hinton was talking about the risks of Ai and especially super Ai

one of the risks he put forward was the increase of bank cyber attacks and he said he has at least 3 different bank accounts to mitigate what he think is going to be an increasing cyber attack on banks once super Ai is fully developed

Another risk he outlined which he didn't have an answer for was if and when a share dealing/pension platform get hacked and the hacker sells your shares would you ever get your money back

This might be just an subjective observation, but people seem more inclined to believe 'Super AI' can only do bad. Will there not be banks, financial institutions etc etc employing 'Super AI' to do good - such as combatting nascent Super AI threats for example.

Section62

mebu60 said:

Section62 said:

kippo1 said:

Hi
just watched a video where Geoffrey Hinton was talking about the risks of Ai and especially super Ai

one of the risks he put forward was the increase of bank cyber attacks and he said he has at least 3 different bank accounts to mitigate what he think is going to be an increasing cyber attack on banks once super Ai is fully developed

Another risk he outlined which he didn't have an answer for was if and when a share dealing/pension platform get hacked and the hacker sells your shares would you ever get your money back

Good advice to have accounts with multiple banks though - not necessarily because of the risk of 'super' AI - but more mundane things like someone in IT support applying an untested upgrade or a cleaner pulling a plug, could temporarily limit access to your money if you only have one bank account.

I have current accounts with three banks but only a minor amount of 'dead' money sitting in two of them. If my main bank was compromised I'm not sure my other two accounts would be much use for cash, regular payments in, DDs, SOs, nominated accounts, etc. The main reason I have them is in case my main bank decides they don't like me any more and I have to make alternative arrangements pdq. They're also useful if you need to cycle cash to meet account requirements. And for getting cashback offers by switching.  

I used to use a simple hub-and-spoke arrangement with one 'main' current account and several backups with only a few pounds in them.  I've adapted that approach to hubs-and-spoke so my main current account activity is split over three hubs, each with a different banking group.  The driver for that was partly mild annoyance with the original 'main' account provider, but also for more redundancy.  My easy access cash is now spread around different savings accounts, and for those where only one linked account is allowed by the savings provider I've spread the links across the three 'hub' current accounts - so it would need to be something pretty catastrophic for me not to be able to get an emergency fund amount transferred into one of the hubs, and from there to transfer it to where it needs to be, or spread it around further to be able to withdraw a sizeable amount in cash.

Having more than one hub account adds to the hassle - for example having an extra step in a transfer process - but on the other hand having a reasonably regular flow of cash between the accounts hopefully means if I did need to make an 'emergency' transfer it may be less likely to be blocked as unusual activity.

Sg28

kippo1 said:

Hi
just watched a video where Geoffrey Hinton was talking about the risks of Ai and especially super Ai

one of the risks he put forward was the increase of bank cyber attacks and he said he has at least 3 different bank accounts to mitigate what he think is going to be an increasing cyber attack on banks once super Ai is fully developed

Another risk he outlined which he didn't have an answer for was if and when a share dealing/pension platform get hacked and the hacker sells your shares would you ever get your money back

There is a constant cat and mouse race between hackers and cyber security. As technology increases so the hacks and the defenses become more sophisticated. AI is no different, its just a new technology that can be used by both sides. 

More concerning for my would be quantum computers. Which will be able to crack any type of encryption including private keys to crypto wallets. But again is the same thing, these quantum computers will also be used to more secure encryption techniques. 

onomatopoeia99

Section62 said:

Good advice to have accounts with multiple banks though - not necessarily because of the risk of 'super' AI - but more mundane things like someone in IT support applying an untested upgrade or a cleaner pulling a plug, could temporarily limit access to your money if you only have one bank account.

Indeed, no-one in IT has ever considered that a cleaner might unplug a critical server to plug in a hoover.  Apart from the fact that the rack PDUs aren't even supplied through BS1363 plugs and wall sockets, and and the servers have two or more PSUs with individual supplies so a single failure won't bring it down, and anything critical has a UPS ...

They always deploy updates untested to live servers as well, change management definitey isn't a thing..

jimjames

onomatopoeia99 said:

Section62 said:

Good advice to have accounts with multiple banks though - not necessarily because of the risk of 'super' AI - but more mundane things like someone in IT support applying an untested upgrade or a cleaner pulling a plug, could temporarily limit access to your money if you only have one bank account.

They always deploy updates untested to live servers as well, change management definitey isn't a thing..

Depends where you are I guess but updates are definitely applied to live servers and can cause immediate outages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_CrowdStrike-related_IT_outages