AI hysteria has a Y2K problem — and the stakes this time could be far higher

Washington’s growing alarm over artificial intelligence is beginning to echo Y2K, experts say, when dire warnings of technological catastrophe prompted a massive scramble to avert failures that ultimately proved far less severe than feared.

"You could draw all sorts of scary scenarios with Y2K as well. The financial system was just going to collapse because people had not written their programs for the year 2000. I had been writing programs in the 1980s for the government, so I'm well aware...