New Delhi, Aug. 24 -- The promise of artificial intelligence (AI) isn't short of promotion. What needs an amp-up, arguably, is how profoundly AI might change power equations. In an interview last week with The Economist's editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes, author Yuval Noah Harari offered a truly stark analogy.

"The human financial system controls the lives of cows and chickens, but they have no idea that finance even exists. This is likely to be our position in 10 years," he said, if the world continues along today's AI path.

Finance is already too complex for most of us, he added, so humans will increasingly let AI take financial decisions, AI models will create ever more complex products, and if there's a big market crash, befuddl...