Imagine waking up tomorrow morning, checking your bank account and discovering that £20,000 has disappeared.

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You haven’t been scammed. You haven’t given your banking details to a criminal and nobody has hacked your account.

Instead, the money vanished because an artificial intelligence assistant you authorised to manage your finances made a catastrophic mistake.

You contact your bank, expecting an immediate refund, but the bank says the transaction was authorised because you gave the AI permission to act on your behalf.

You contact the technology company, which points to its terms and conditions and argues it cannot be held responsible for every decision its software makes.

Suddenly you’re caught in the middle, thousands of pounds out of pocket, with nobody willing to accept responsibility.

Welcome to what could become the next major consumer protection scandal.

This is not a far-fetched concern.

Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England, has warned about the legal and regulatory challenges created by increasingly autonomous AI systems that can make financial decisions and carry out transactions on behalf of consumers.

I believe he is right to be concerned.

Artificial intelligence is moving at an extraordinary pace. We are rapidly approaching a world where consumers could routinely use AI assistants to compare financial products, move savings, pay bills, make purchases and manage their money.

The potential benefits are enormous.

Imagine a digital assistant that constantly searches for better savings rates, identifies unnecessary subscriptions, challenges excessive charges and makes sure you never pay more than necessary for everyday services.

For consumers, that could be revolutionary.

But there is a fundamental problem. What happens when the technology gets........

© LBC