Designing early warning systems for detecting systemic risk: A case study and discussion

•Socio-techno-biological systems are becoming more complex and interdependent.•Approaches to systemic risk detection have not kept pace with these developments.•Artificial intelligence (AI) promises to revolutionize systemic risk detection.•Smarter, more integrated approaches are needed to make AI tools work in sync.•Principles for designing competent AI-based Early Warning Systems are presented.