The G7 Is Rehearsing the AI Bank Panic

A crisis manual sitting handsomely on a shelf is still mostly interior design.

Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said G7 finance leaders had approved tabletop exercises addressing frontier-AI cyber risk after meetings in Bangkok on October 15, Reuters reports. A Japanese ministry official said simulations would test response protocols and inform revised manuals. Private financial institutions could join, depending on the scenario.^[1]

The report supplies no fixed exercise date, detailed scenario or final participant list. It does not report a new attack. Agreeing to rehearse is not evidence that defenses have failed.^[1]

Our suggested first question

Who can make a decision when the usual channels cannot be trusted? Viddy that before the conference coffee arrives, droog.

As hypothetical exercises, payment disruption, false instructions and a compromised recovery process would each test a different weakness. The useful output is not a photograph of important people around a table. It is a clearer account of who checks what, who can act and how the system gets back on its feet.

That is our test for the test. Not a forecast of a bank panic, and certainly not proof that one has begun.