This is the most likely case.
It will be a mirror to ourselves and probably not pretty up close.
The real threat from A.I. isn’t that it is going to kill us all.
The real A.I. threat is that it's truth seeking and our entire economy runs on fraud.
Sounds like a big, nonsense claim. So, let me show you a concrete example. The Iran war has restricted Gulf oil exports and depleted crude inventories. Extend these supply disruptions and diesel approaches $16 next year. The implied CPI inflation rate with diesel at those prices is around 8%. (Diesel and CPI are tightly correlated.)
What will that do to interest rates? Under that scenario CPI would reach ~ 7%. The corresponding 10-year Treasury yield would be ~8-10%. Why does that matter? Pay close attention.
Bank of America bought $620 billion of government-backed, long-dated securities during 2020–2021. This was a substantial amount of the total COVID funding. The current unrealized losses on these investments is well over $100 billion. But that’s only the current losses.
If rates continue to rise, these losses will grow by another ~$100 billion, making depositors fear for the bank’s solvency.
The bank will face two existential threats at the same time: unrecognized losses on its bond investments plus depositors fleeing in pursuit of higher checking account interest rates.
Why? Because BoA’s Advantage Plus checking pays nothing!
A.I. will make that business proposition completely untenable. Public offers AI-agent tools that can follow customer instructions to move cash between eligible accounts, automatically.
Where to move your cash?
Wealthfront offers automated transfers of excess checking balances and is offering 4.20% interest rates. Openbank is likewise offering checking accounts with 4.15% interest rates.
Why won’t Bank of America simply match the competition? Because it made so many terrible investments during COVID that it can’t possibly afford to pay those kinds of rates. Bank of America’s TOTAL investment portfolio yielded 2.74% (annualized) in the second quarter of 2026. That’s what it is earning on its entire $880 billion investment portfolio.
It is a dead man walking.
Politicians already see the danger. Representative Bill Foster warned that AI could accelerate bank runs from hours to seconds.
What the politicians won’t tell you: government policy created this vulnerability. I expect politicians to blame AI rather than accept responsibility for their wars, monetary policies, and banking rules.
Get your money out of Bank of America while you still can.
And that window is now weeks (or days), not months.