All photographs of supercomputers by @docubyte
ARGUMENTS AROUND THE RISE OF MACHINES TEND TO POLARISE BETWEEN FEARFUL ANTIPATHY AND FEVERISH ANTICIPATION.
But what does the rise of machines mean for us as investors: an opportunity or a risk?
We contend that a knowledgeable, skilled and determined active investor can harness the rise of the machines to deliver superior performance over the long run.
A ROMANTIC MIRAGE
The investing challenge is complex. Done well, investing serves a tremendous purpose. And it can be rewarding. As a result, our industry attracts talent and innovation. Most recently, this has come to include the fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning – broadly referred to as ‘machines’ in what follows.
The romantic mirage that man-plus-machine is better than machine-without-man has been disproved in many disciplines. Machines first beat the best humans at chess last century. Medical image recognition can be done more quickly and accurately by machines. ChatGPT passes prestigious graduate-level exams with ease. Humans are even being outdone in the last bastion of the creative arts, with the 2023 Sony World Photography Award unwittingly awarded to an AI-generated picture.
Machines with brute computing power, powerful techniques and ever-increasing data are simply superior in more and more fields.
TEUN DRAAISMA
Head of Investment Strategy
