Weak AI & Financial singularity: What it means for Stock Markets

What is Financial Singularity

This refers to the day machines are smarter than humans. Some experts put that date at 2029; we, however, think it could occur much faster. Machines are already dominating the trading world, and they are being made to think like their masters; this means that mass psychology will still be a force to reckon with; only in the years to come, the mass mindset will represent machines also instead of only humans.

The British pound flash crash that occurred on the 7^th of October was triggered by machines (computers). As machines move into the game the action will be more volatile as they can run 100 times faster than humans so it will create swings and reversals that are spectacular in nature; we are not quite there yet but expect volatility to continue rising.

What is Weak AI

According to Investopedia, weak AI is:

Weak AI, or Narrow AI, is machine intelligence that is limited to a specific or narrow area. Weak Artificial Intelligence (AI) simulates human cognition and benefits mankind by automating time-consuming tasks and by analyzing data in ways that humans sometimes can’t. Investopedia

according to skymind not only does strong AI not exist as anything more than an idea, but we don’t know how to get there yet. We are in the slow phase of building AI. They call it strong because we imagine it will be strong than us. We call it general because it will apply to all problems. The opposite of strong AI is weak AI. The opposite of general AI is narrow AI.

The AI that data scientists are deploying to the world right now is a bunch of machine-learning models, each of which performing one task well. They are like a crowd of savants babbling their narrow responses to the world. That said, DeepMind’s algorithms, most recently AlphaZero, are able to solve a wider and wider array of video games. They are generalizing beyond a single problem. This may be their secret.

Nature favours the strongest Species (be it Weak AI or Strong AI)

The other thing to keep in mind is that nature favours the strongest and so if humans want to remain in this ecosystem they will have to adapt. This means enhancements, and so the people of the future (which is not too far in the making) will not look like today; they will be part human and part machine. The word cyborg comes to mind; we can expect memory enhancements, vision enhancements, body part enhancements for strength, etc., etc. Education in most cases today is a waste of time, but once these new enhancement technologies come out, education as we know it will become obsolete.

A simple memory upgrade and you will know everything there is to know on any given subject. Moore’s law states that the number of transistors on a chip will double every year and this has held true; at this speed, in about 60 years or so one computer could be smarter than the entire human race. Thus an upgrade is inevitable.

Worlds Leading Futurologist on weak AI

One of the world’s leading futurologists and artificial intelligence (AI) developers, 66-year-old Kurzweil has previous form in making accurate predictions about the way technology is heading. In 1990 he said a computer would be capable of beating a chess champion by 1998 – a feat managed by IBM’s Deep Blue, against Garry Kasparov, in 1997.

When the internet was still a tiny network used by a small collection of academics, Kurzweil anticipated it would soon make it possible to link up the whole world. Now, Kurzweil says than within 15 years robots will have overtaken us, having fulfilled the so-called Turing test where computers can exhibit intelligent behaviour equal to that of a human. Full Story

Financial singularity drawing close; 80% of trades conducted via machines

Over 80% of all trades are conducted via machines that are programmed by mentally deficient humans; hence the computers, for now, are simply, magnifying the emotions of euphoria and fear. If we add in Dark Pools, then one could argue that machines conduct 90% of all trades. While many might view this as a shocking development, we see it as a Godsend; it is like putting a thousand idiots on steroids and asking them to build a spaceship.

The proportion of US trading activity represented by buy and sell orders from mutual funds, hedge funds, pensions and brokerages, referred to as “real money” or institutional investors, accounted for just 16 per cent of total market volume in the form of buying, and 13 per cent via selling in the final quarter of last year, according to analysis by Morgan Stanley’s Quantitative and Derivative Strategies group. Full story

We don’t view this as a shocking development as we base our investment decisions on Mass Psychology and Technical Analysis and over the past 16 years, we have successfully navigated our subscribers through market tops and bottoms. However, a financial singularity is going to significantly affect the returns of the small player and it will make it very difficult for players who focus on fundamentals or technical analysis only to lock in decent gains.

Singularity Update March 1, 2020

The 114-year-old industrial giant said Tuesday it will release one of the world’s most powerful quantum computers within the next three months.

Honeywell believes the quantum computer will be the “most powerful” on the market in terms of quantum volume. It says the computer, once launched in three months, will have a quantum volume of 64 (compared to the 28-qubit quantum computer from IBM)— almost two times that of its closest competitor.

“Quantum computing will enable us to tackle complex scientific and business challenges, driving step-change improvements in computational power, operating costs and speed,” Honeywell CEO Darius Adamczyk said in a statement.

The 114-year-old industrial giant said Tuesday it will release one of the world’s most powerful quantum computers within the next three months. Honeywell — through its VC business Honeywell Ventures — also disclosed strategic investments in two quantum computing software providers: Cambridge Quantum Computing and Zapata Computing.

It will team up with investment bank JPMorgan Chase to develop quantum computing algorithms.

Honeywell believes the quantum computer will be the “most powerful” on the market in terms of quantum volume. It says the computer, once launched in three months, will have quantum volume of 64 (compared to the 28-qubit quantum computer from IBM)— almost two times that of its closest competitor.
“Quantum computing will enable us to tackle complex scientific and business challenges, driving step-change improvements in computational power, operating costs and speed,” Honeywell CEO Darius Adamczyk said in a statement. finance.yahoo.com

Retail business would be better of embracing AI

Nadella thinks retailers would be better served building their own AI teams that could predict consumer behaviour or solve last-mile delivery challenges than allocating more funds to search functions. Good examples of retailers doing just that, according to Nadella, include Starbucks (Nadella is on Starbucks’ board and is quick to offer up praise), Walmart and Home Depot.

To single out Starbucks, the coffee titan isn’t necessarily out there blasting the internet with offers for free cold brew. Instead, it has spent big-time to build predictive analytics into its mobile app (the app will now know what you want before you even know). Starbucks has gone as far as adding tech to its store coffee machines to analyze performance and anticipate future needs of a single store. Yahoo Finance