Friday Focus: Iran’s window of maximum leverage and a new AI model puts financial systems at risk

May 1, 2026
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Friday Focus: Iran’s window of maximum leverage and a new AI model puts financial systems at risk

Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to full length editions of the Friday Focus podcast with Janice Stein. Your donor membership comes with other great perks including a livestream pass to our mainstage debates and advanced access to full length episodes of our other weekly podcast with Globe and Mail columnist Andrew Coyne.

The U.S. and Iran are locked in a long-term stalemate over the Strait of Hormuz. With the midterms looming, the Iranians view the next few weeks as the window of maximum leverage. If the strait stays closed into the summer months people will start to feel the pain in a very real way that could tip into a global recession. The consequences of this high stakes game of poker are getting much more serious as both parties are digging in. Who blinks first? In the second half of the show Rudyard and Janice turn to Mythos, a new AI model from Anthropic which allows users to find and exploit vulnerabilities in major operating systems. This new software will give malignant actors access to private information that could cripple our financial institutions. We did not learn our lesson from social media and the laissez faire attitude we have taken towards AI will lead to a very real and dangerous Y2K moment.

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