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Are Robots Coming To Take Investor Jobs on Wall Street? (nypost.com)
From an article on NYPost: More investors are warming to the cold, steely embrace of the increasingly sophisticated, low-cost automated robo-advisers. The primary reason is to save money on those fees and charges. Nearly one in three investors says these machines are superior at picking stocks and lessen their risk, and almost as many say the machines are better at selecting investments for retirement than human brokers, according to a new study of US investors by market research and consulting firm Spectrem Group.
There's a big difference.
I'm crying all the tears for those rich wall street investors who will get outsourced. Really, I am.
Let me guess - you're a crocodile, right?
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
First, I work as a Financial Guy. CFP, to be exact, giving advice. We see robots as competitors for low-end, low-margin accounts with people we probably wouldn't want to do business with anyway or people who we'd tell "Do these few things, build your savings, and as your situation becomes more complicated come find us or someone else you trust." Your average Broker or Insurance Salesman might be in trouble (miiight), for sure, but for those of us who give more complex advice and do financial projections, robots are going to be a looooong time before they replicate the kind of nuanced interaction people get with a full service advisor. Is your robot going to handle your spouse's death settlement paperwork and give you support in knowing someone is allowing you to grieve while they handle the bureaucracy of it? Is it going to give you a quick answer about your SEPP contributions (maybe, yeah), or know-how about your Solo 401(k) for your new business, the tax implications that may directly apply to you given your goals, help you put that together, keep it compliant? What would end up happening, since there are so many possibilities, is that a robot would end up asking so many questions that the person would simply give up and wouldn't be able to answer many of them even if they persevered.
Yes, we're computers, but we ask for all the data (ok, let's automate that), input it (automate this too!) then synthesize it given a process developed through exchanging Natural Language (which AI still has a hard time processing) with clients, then spit out advice. Those last two bits are real toughies.
Yes, it can happen some day.
We'll use AI as tools to enhance human advice; replacing it altogether would be nearly impossible/mostly foolish as others have also pointed out.
Yes, some people will come back and say,"Bu bu bu attorneys and CPAs are gonna be automated!" and to that I say the same as for us: Extremely basic issues? Sure, automate them! We want that too, it would make our jobs simpler so we can focus on the complex and interesting and important stuff instead of the mundane crap we're saddled with right now. Please please PLEASE automate the mundane shit! In fact, that's part of my job at the practice I'm in because our company is too slow/shortsighted/bureaucratic to make the tools for us.
Also.... compliance. When a person takes a robot's advice and shit goes south, who's liable? You think auto insurance is gonna get weird? The investment industry is MUCH more complicated (though simpler in some ways). Could it be done? I think so. It might actually be nice in some ways:
"James, bring up Mr. Blibbleblump's accounts please. What were his annualized returns, after fees, for the last five years? Please print us both a copy and notify Fidelity we're rolling over his ex-employer's 401k into a new IRA account here."
If that could be done by a robot... and it really should... that would make my life miraculous and wonderful. It would axe an admin assistant, but that stuff is menial, soul-crushing, and horrible. I'd find something else for that person to do such as direct client service or relationship-building or marketing.
Overall... I suspect it's a very long time away, at least for actual advisors and not just brokers. Even for brokers (I'm not as well-versed in this universe, but have known some fancy-pants ones), the complicated stuff is WAY more complicated than an AI can handle at this point, and even if it could someone would need to monitor it; the big boys will still have jobs and I suspect it will stay that way for a while.
Also, Betteridge's Law, so "No."
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