The international monetary system is not ready to deal with the major risks of cyberattacks made possible by the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned on Sunday.

"We do not have, as an international community, the collective capacity to protect the international monetary system against large-scale cyber risks," Kristalina Georgieva told CBS, on the eve of the start of the spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank (WB) in Washington.

"The risks continue to grow exponentially," she added, calling on the world's major central banks to "be very attentive" and "work together" to fill this gap.

"Time is not on our side in this matter," Ms. Georgieva asserted.

The Bulgarian economist was reacting to a meeting held Friday in Washington, during which top American financial officials discussed the cybersecurity implications of Anthropic's postponement of its new AI model Mythos, which was presented as too dangerous in its current state.

The company stated on April 7 that Mythos was capable of detecting unprecedented computer vulnerabilities at an unprecedented speed and scale. It also announced that it had entrusted a consortium of tech companies, including Google, Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, and Palo Alto Networks, with the task of testing the model and patching vulnerabilities before considering its release.

This exclusively American consortium includes no foreign institutions, raising the question of the preparedness of the rest of the world for a model whose offensive capabilities would not stop at the borders of the United States.

The publication of Mythos' performance is welcomed by a large number of cybersecurity experts as the realization of their long-standing predictions about the rapid rise of generative AI.

It also sparks critical comments accusing Anthropic of overplaying the risks of a technology it actively markets, in fierce competition with OpenAI and its powerful ChatGPT model.

These announcements come as US financial markets are focused on the record-breaking IPO plans of these two rivals, expected later this year.