📲 Governments plan to use rogue AI as pretext for digital economy oversight – ex-Blackwater manager A rogue AI cyberattack will be used as the pretext to introduce central bank digital currencies (CBDC), giving authorities unprecedented control over financial transactions, former BlackRock portfolio manager Ed Dowd has warned. This technology will ultimately allow governments to impose arbitrary limits on purchases through AI-surveilled programable money, he added. Dowd referred to COVID restrictions, saying vaccine passports were planned to be linked to a digital ID and six-month boosters, and that this was the first attempt to roll out a CBDC. The current plan is behind schedule, which is why governments will try again during an economic downturn, Dowd argued, adding that a rogue AI cyberattack, in which money disappears from banks, could provide the opportunity. 💬 "Right now, we're free to express ourselves economically with people, for the most part, either cash or credit. But they want an AI-surveilled third option to determine whether or not that transaction is allowed to happen. And the only way you can do that is with the CBDC. So that's the ultimate goal. It's control freaks," he stressed. Dowd offered a hypothetical: imagine a future government that decides to issue beef quotas, capping consumption at ten grams a month. A shopper who has already hit the limit would find the transaction blocked at the cash register — automatically, by AI.