Top Economist Backs U.S. Tech and Gold, Shuns Government Bonds

A prominent economist says he does not fear artificial intelligence — he embraces it fully in his investment portfolios. What frightens him is something far older: government debt.

"I'm afraid of human stupidity," the economist said, drawing a sharp line between the risks investors typically debate and the risk he actually prices in. In his view, the danger does not come from machines making decisions. It comes from the people managing sovereign balance sheets.

That conviction drives an unconventional asset allocation. The economist prefers U.S. technology stocks — the sector most exposed to the artificial intelligence buildout — alongside gold, the traditional haven. He avoids bonds issued by heavily indebted governments.

The logic is consistent across both legs of the trade. If artificial intelligence delivers on its promise, the U.S. technology companies building and deploying it stand to capture a disproportionate share of the value. Their earnings power compounds while legacy industries adapt.

Gold serves as the counterweight. The same fiscal mismanagement that makes government bonds unatitative also makes a hard asset attractive. Gold carries no issuer, no coupon to default, and no politician setting its supply. For an investor who describes government debt as the real systemic threat, that absence is the point.

Government bonds, by contrast, sit at the intersection of the economist's two concerns: rising debt loads and the human decisions behind them. Decades of deficits across major economies have pushed sovereign debt to levels that historically made markets nervous. The economist's answer is simply not to lend to those governments on current terms.

The position cuts against the grain of standard portfolio construction. Conventional advice treats sovereign bonds, particularly U.S. Treasuries, as the anchor of a balanced portfolio — the asset that holds value when everything else falls. The economist rejects that assumption outright. In his framing, the "risk-free" asset now carries the most human risk of all.

His stance also reframes the artificial intelligence debate. Much of the current discussion centers on whether AI will displace workers, destabilize markets or escape human control. The economist dismisses the machine as the threat. The technology is a tool, and in his portfolio, a profitable one.

The deeper warning is aimed at policymakers. If investors of this profile begin treating sovereign debt as structurally unsafe — pricing in stupidity rather than prudence — governments will face higher borrowing costs and thinner demand at auction. That dynamic can feed on itself.

For now, the trade is clear: own the companies building artificial intelligence, own gold as insurance against fiscal failure, and lend nothing to the governments most likely to fail the test. Whether that allocation proves prescient or premature depends on whether the stupidity he fears materializes in policy — or in the markets that bet against it.