ITV News political commentator Robert Peston has issued a stark warning about an impending AI-driven market crash, predicting that robots will take over when society collapses. Peston, who accurately forecast both the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, outlines his concerns in his new thriller, The Kill Switch, and fears life may imitate art.
AI Investment Bubble and Market Shock
Peston warns that a serious global financial crash is possible within the next year or two due to massive investments in AI infrastructure. “I am genuinely anxious that we're going to get a serious financial crash, globally, in the next year or two, because there is the most astonishing amount of money going into building the data centres and power plants for AI,” he told the Radio Times. He cites the recent SpaceX stock exchange flotation as an example of “a late-1920s degree of breathless excitement on the markets.” Peston worries that profits will not justify the investments, leading to business failures and a significant market shock.
AI Infrastructure Will Survive
Despite the potential crash, Peston believes the AI infrastructure will endure, similar to the railway boom and bust of the 1840s. “Even if there is a financial crash, the AI infrastructure will survive it, much like we had a railway boom and bust [in the 1840s], but the railways themselves were still there after,” he said. He predicts that AI and robots will displace “incredibly large numbers of jobs,” and that conventional productive employment may not replace them. This could lead to a collapse of society as people lose income and governments lose tax revenue.
Societal Collapse and Taxation
Peston elaborated on the potential societal impact: “If vast numbers lose their jobs, nobody pays income tax, so the government can’t pay for public services, and society collapses.” He has become a modern-day Nostradamus with his accurate predictions, and he hopes people will take his latest warnings seriously. Reflecting on past warnings, he said, “In the spring and summer of 2007 I was warning that what was happening in the banking sector was going to cause enormous harm to us all, and lots of politicians and people in the City wrote to the BBC to say I was scaremongering and needed to be closed down.” He also noted his early concerns about COVID-19 after visiting Wuhan.
