Are we headed towards a robot investing singularity, where machines are just trading stocks with each other in a never-ending cycle of profit and loss? One thing's for sure - we better hope those robots are better at investing than they are at dancing.

And let's not forget the inevitable rise of the AI investment banker. No more smarmy Wall Street types in expensive suits - just a room full of computers with fancy degrees from the Ivy League. Will they still be sending out "Happy Holidays" cards and taking clients to lunch at the Four Seasons? Or will they just be sending out algorithm-generated memes and offering a free month of Amazon Prime as a sign-up bonus? Only time will tell, but one thing is certain: the robots are coming for our jobs, and apparently our portfolios too.

The two paragraphs above, and the title of this article, were created by ChatGPT in response to my query that I was going to write about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and investing. In the last two months I’ve fielded more questions from investors about AI in general, and ChatGPT in particular, than any other topic. 

Wondering what the GPT stands for? Here’s the explanation, directly from ChatGPT itself:

GPT stands for "Generative Pre-trained Transformer", which refers to a type of neural network architecture used in natural language processing (NLP) tasks, such as language translation, text summarization, and text generation. The term was first introduced in a research paper by Google AI in 2018, which described a new model called "BERT" (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) that was pre-trained on vast amounts of text data and achieved state-of-the-art results on a range of NLP benchmarks. Since then, several variants of GPT have been developed by various researchers and have become widely used in industry and academia for various NLP applications.

The queries above took just two seconds to generate. Here’s a query that instead took almost a minute for ChatGPT to figure out: what do you think about love?

As an AI language model, I do not have personal beliefs or emotions, including those related to love. However, I can provide information and insights about love based on my programming and training data. Love is a complex and multifaceted concept that has been studied by scholars from various disciplines, including psychology, sociology, anthropology, and philosophy. It can refer to a range of experiences and emotions, including attraction, attachment, intimacy, passion, and commitment. Love can also take different forms and expressions, such as romantic love, familial love, platonic love, and self-love. Overall, love is a fundamental aspect of human experience that plays a significant role in personal relationships, social interactions, and cultural norms.

Technically correct I guess, but it surely would not win plaudits from poetry critics. 

Next, I posed a question in two different methods, first: what is the meaning of life?

The meaning of life is a philosophical and existential question that has been debated by scholars, thinkers, and individuals for centuries. There is no one definitive answer to this question as it is subjective and can vary based on individual beliefs, values, and experiences.

Some people may believe that the meaning of life is to pursue happiness, others may believe it is to fulfill a divine purpose or destiny, while others may believe it is to make a positive impact on the world or to seek personal fulfillment and self-actualization.

Ultimately, the meaning of life is a deeply personal and subjective question, and it is up to each individual to determine their own sense of purpose and meaning in life.

The above answer took almost as long as the previous one about love. Instead a more direct question on the same subject took just three seconds to answer accurately: what does Douglas Adams say is the meaning of life?

Douglas Adams, the author of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," famously wrote that the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything is "42." However, he also wrote in his book that this answer does not make any sense and is not very helpful.

In his work, Adams often used humor and satire to explore the absurdity and unpredictability of life, and he believed that the search for meaning is a central aspect of the human experience. While he did not provide a straightforward answer to the question of the meaning of life, his writing suggests that he saw humor, curiosity, and the pursuit of knowledge and experience as important values that can bring joy and meaning to life.

It's quite impressive that ChatGPT could take what is a common name and link it to the correct intention in my question.  It can also do other mind-boggling things like ‘create a script for an episode of Friends about learning how to cook beef wellington from Gordon Ramsey’, or automatically create an efficient tourist daily schedule for a city you’re visiting based on the places you want to see. 

So can AI replace a financial advisor? Here’s ChatGPT’s answer:

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to revolutionize the financial advisory industry, and in some cases, it may be able to replace certain functions that are traditionally performed by human advisors. However, there are also limitations to what AI can do, and it is unlikely that it will completely replace financial advisors in the near future.

One area where AI can be particularly useful is in the analysis and processing of vast amounts of data. With machine learning algorithms and natural language processing, AI can quickly analyze market trends, news articles, and financial reports to identify patterns and opportunities for investment. This can help investors make more informed decisions and optimize their portfolios.

Additionally, AI can also help with tasks such as risk management, fraud detection, and regulatory compliance, which are important functions of financial advisors. By automating these tasks, AI can help improve the efficiency and accuracy of financial advisory services while reducing costs for clients.

However, there are also limitations to what AI can do. For example, AI may struggle with providing personalized advice and understanding the nuances of individual client situations, which is an important part of financial planning and investment management. Additionally, AI may not have the same level of empathy, emotional intelligence, and ethical considerations as human advisors, which can be important factors in building trust and rapport with clients.

Therefore, while AI can be a valuable tool for financial advisors and investors, it is unlikely to completely replace human advisors in the near future. Rather, it is more likely that AI and human advisors will work together in a complementary way to provide the best possible service to clients.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. We’ve been using ChatGPT more and more in the office to automate a lot of tasks.  With AI’s help, this article has been the one that took me by far the least amount of time to write.

However the task of finding good investment opportunities and structuring resilient portfolios is something that is still beyond the capability of AI.  The short track record of people that jumped the gun and created machine learning hedge funds and robo-advisors have not shown any advantage over humans, at least so far.