Gary Gensler, who serves as Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has created many headlines in recent years through his general skepticism of cryptocurrencies, his unwillingness to define what it is, and consistent efforts to go after what he considers to be crypto fraud.

Now he's turning his gaze toward the potential downsides of AI. His immediate concern is AI's potential to bring down stock markets and severely burn unwitting investors, according to remarks he made recently to Bloomberg. On a Wall Street in which “flash crashes” and related aberrations and gyrations are triggered by automated trading systems that think in microseconds, “This is the most transformative technology of this generation,” he reportedly said. “There’s a ‘there’ there—we can get to crypto later. We’re taking so much of what we humans do on a daily basis and automating it.”

Gensler recently proposed new SEC rules to determine potential conflicts of interest among traders using AI technologies, and oversaw the SEC adopting new rules to disclose cybersecurity incidents (which would not necessarily be related to AI but are expected to be increasingly driven by it.)

Separately, three Democratic US Senators last year proposed new legislation called the Algorithmic Accountability Act, designed to root out AI-driven discrimination (witting and unwitting) in particular while generally addressing the issues related to “algorithms and other automated decision systems (taking) on increasingly prominent roles in (Americans') lives.” A number of recent Senate hearings are also examining the potential negative effects of AI.

A new series of IDCA Webinars addresses technologies and the issues technologies create with building Digital Economies worldwide, including the use of AI. An upcoming webinar on Wednesday, August 16 centers around the topic of Drivers of Digital Economies, and a robust discussion of AI will be part of this event. Then on Wednesday, December 13 a webinar focused solely on The Human Aspects of AI is also on the schedule. Registration to all IDCA webinars is free and now open.