By Niall Ferguson
Publication Date: 2026-06-03 02:03:00
Is artificial intelligence a blessing or a curse? It could be one of the defining questions of the 21st century. AI promises extraordinary benefits, from medical breakthroughs to unprecedented economic growth. But its development also poses significant risks to the financial and geopolitical landscape – and there are no signs of slowing down. On Monday Anthropic Plans submitted for an initial public offering, a move that could boost the company’s value to nearly $1 trillion. Other large AI companies already want to follow this example.
Against this background, President Trump said on Tuesday signed an executive order is calling on some AI companies to allow the government to test powerful new models 30 days before they are released to the public – a scaled-down version of an order originally scheduled for last month.
Today, historian and Free Press columnist Niall Ferguson argues that the rapid and largely unregulated growth of AI, for all its positive potential, not only threatens to make us obsolete; it has…
