New AI models risk economic amnesia

ARTIFICIAL intelligence (AI) is now irreversibly out of Pandora’s box, as Martin Wolf of the Financial Times observed, and we must learn to live with machines that can think. The real concern, however, is not just the intelligence of these machines but what they might choose to forget.

For centuries, economic history has served as a foundation for policymakers, investors and scholars to learn about financial cycles, crises and macroeconomic transformations. From the South Sea Bubble of 1720 to France’s Mississippi Company collapse and the Panic of 1873, history has repeatedly warned of the dangers of speculation, leverage and financial excess.

Contemporary challenges, from inflationary spirals to financial bubbles, have even more recent historical parallels from the Great Depression to the 2008 financial crisis, which reaffirm how history provides insight. Even our understanding of the global South’s economic trajectory today is incomplete without acknowledging the structural forces that shaped it over centuries.