ANZ Group Holdings Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Nuno Matos has called for global regulation to manage the impact of artificial intelligence on the labor market, which he warned could trigger an international crisis.
Should large-scale job cuts of up to 50% emerge, “we’ll have a crisis and it’s not going to be in Australia, it’s going to be a global crisis,” Matos said Thursday during a parliamentary hearing in Canberra. “This is one of the few examples where I would say some global regulation is needed to make sure that society does not go into trouble,” he said.
The adoption of AI among Australia’s banks in recent years has coincided with job cuts amid a challenging economic backdrop. Skeptics including Australia’s finance sector union have accused banks of replacing staff with AI.
Outside the finance sector, Canva Inc. this month announced a sweeping overhaul that will see 22% of its staff leave while Microsoft Corp. is offering buyouts to around a quarter of its 223,000 staff as part of the tech giant’s efforts to retool its workforce for the AI era.
“I hope that obviously the world and the administrations are capable of cooperating and ensuring that this technology does not create a social problem at a global level,” Matos said.
Matos said workers should develop AI skills to reduce the risk of losing their job to colleagues who are more proficient, and pointed to ANZ’s efforts to develop staff capacity internally.
The comments intensify concerns Matos has previously voiced about the quickly developing technology, which he believes could be used to attack banks as key choke-points for the economy.
“AI has a dark side,” he said. “Wide adoption of AI without having the adequate guardrails — it’s a big problem. No banks should be building AI without building the right controls,” he said, adding that ANZ is developing its own “control platform” as it employs the technology across the bank.
ANZ is also using AI to prevent fraud and identify cyber weaknesses, he said.
Photograph: ANZ CEO Nuno Matos; photo credit: Brendon Thorne/Bloomberg
Was this article valuable?
Here are more articles you may enjoy.
Five Weeks After Isaias, 68,000 Claims and $736M in Losses, Florida Carrier Data Show 
Archdiocese of NY Finalizes $800M Fund for Sex Abuse Survivors; Avoids Bankruptcy 
Row House Fire in Brooklyn Kills 6 People and Injures 9 
Allstate’s AI Ecosystem to Include a Personal Agentic Assistant for Customers 
