Robert Peston Predicted COVID-19 and The 2008 Economic Crisis, Was Labelled a Fearmonger. Now He Has Another Dire Warning

The journalist who once predicted the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic has issued another stark warning, this time about Artificial Intelligence. Robert Peston has raised alarm over the rapidly advancing technology, cautioning that it has the potential to wipe out “incredibly large numbers of jobs.”

His new book, “The Kill Switch,” explores the risks AI poses to the world today. Peston believes the situation is serious enough that global leaders should be prioritising the issue above all else. “The thing that upsets me most is that this should be the stuff that we’re all debating. This should be the stuff that our leaders should be talking about more than anything else. And they’re not,” he said.

Governments Should Consider No-Income-Tax Scenarios

Peston notes that AI has already replaced a significant number of roles, with companies signalling plans to expand its use even further in the years ahead. He suggests that if job losses leave people without means to earn an income, governments may need to explore funding public services without relying on income tax.

Also Read:Government Dashes Hopes Of LTCG Tax Rollback For Equity Investors

He also linked AI to the possibility of a future financial crash. “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 said.

Predictions About the Financial Crisis and COVID-19

The 66-year-old had previously warned world leaders about both a pandemic and an economic collapse, arguing that governments failed to act despite clear warning signs of low-probability, high-impact events. “We had the global financial crisis… We had another low-probability catastrophic event in Covid, which again we didn’t prepare for,” he said.

Reflecting on his earlier predictions in an interview with Radio Times, Peston recalled warning in 2007 that developments in the banking sector would cause significant harm. “I was warning that 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 said.

Also Read:

He also recounted his early concerns about COVID-19. “A few years later, I’d made a ton of documentaries about China, and knew it well, and had been to Wuhan. So when this mysterious new virus turned up at the end of 2019, I said to anyone in government who would listen to me, ‘This looks serious,'” Peston recalled.