from their own banking crises. 7 the parliamentary supervisory council of the bank of finland met ben bernanke during the last week of his term of office in washington last january. we asked him what lessons we might take from the research on the depression of the 1930s in the current crisis, and if there had been any new developments in the field. he emphasised that the essential lessons learned from the 1930s depression were the securing of banks ’ liquidity during the crisis and aggressive reductions in interest rates, so as to avert a deepening of the crisis and a slide into deflation. but one thing about the current crisis had surprised bernanke : the complexity of international financial institutions and their multi - level connections within the global financial system. the demand for international cooperation was thus even more important now than it had been during the great depression. the influence of these lessons of the 1930s can be clearly seen in the monetary policy of recent years. the escalation of the financial crisis in september 2008 as the lehman brothers investment bank fell, and the severe disruption to the financial markets that followed, compelled central banks to act swiftly. the dry - up of liquidity in the banking system and onset of a general banking crisis had to be prevented. the securing of the banks ’ liquidity was carried out in broad international cooperation. for instance, european banks at that point needed large amounts of short - term dollar credit, which the ecb was able to arrange with the help of the us central bank. international cooperation was achieved with unprecedented speed and scope. as economic growth stalled in 2009 after the money - market crisis, inflation also came to a halt and turned negative for a while in all of the key currency areas. monetary policy was eased around the world, to support activity and prevent a destructive spiral of deflation. policy rates were pushed to record lows, to 1 per cent in the euro area, and already then close to zero in many countries. bernanke, b : nonmonetary effects of the financial crisis in the propagation of the great depression. american economic review, vol. 73, no. 3 ( 1983 ). bis central bankers ’ speeches since that time, interest rates have remained exceptionally low everywhere and the spiral of deflation has been avoided. in the current circumstances, the securing of price stability and the supporting of economic growth have not been in conflict ; rather, monetary policy has been able to pursue both of these goals. * * * in assessing the success of monetary policy

for its part, is widely expected to have a major impact on labour markets and productivity, and possibly also on income distribution and economic growth. the concept of ai as a field of science originated in the 1950s, but it was only with the significant increase in computer capacity and availability of high - quality data that a new 1 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches leap in ai development became possible. the concept of ai has, of course, evolved over time, and it has often been associated with machine learning. a significant step more recently, as we know, has been the proliferation of generative ai and large language models powering solutions such as chatgpt and copilot. the international monetary fund, the imf, notes that the impacts of ai may vary by country depending on factors such as the country's readiness to utilize ai. advanced economies are best positioned to leverage ai, but they are also the most exposed to aidriven structural changes in the labour market, including the disappearance of some jobs and the creation of others. while the least developed economies are less exposed to these changes in the labour market, they are also less prepared to leverage ai, risking the creation of a new technological divide. the race for ai supremacy is already on. mario draghi's recently published report on the future of european competitiveness argues that the world stands on the brink of a new digital revolution driven by the proliferation of ai. the report expects ai to be a key factor in europe's future productivity growth. the report also emphasizes the importance of increasing ai investments in europe, including data centres and supercomputers, in order to avoid falling behind the united states and china. importantly, it also recommends education and retraining programmes to help the workforce adapt to changes brought about by ai. let's turn now to the impact of ai on finance, the topic of the second session. ai systems have been present in the financial sector for over a decade. as in many other sectors, the use of ai is already improving productivity. ai - powered systems can process large volumes of data in real time, allowing faster decisionmaking. tasks like loan approvals, which once took days, can now be completed in minutes. so, what else can we expect? additional automation in tasks such as customer service, fraud detection and regulatory compliance can further help drive down costs and minimize risks of human error. beyond operational gains, ai is also bringing new tools to risk management and improving both service quality