Description
There is an AI that does it. That's why in May 2014, a Hong Kong-based hedge fund, Knowledge Ventures, appointed an algorithm called VITAL to its board of directors. In this industry, it is now common for many funds to operate without human intervention. Also called quant funds, on paper this makes sense. This is because the goal of any hedge fund is to make money for investors using different strategies that can include things like buying and selling stocks, betting on the price of currencies, or investing in commodities like gold or oil. All this by examining the data to look for patterns that may not be immediately obvious to the human eye to create sophisticated analysis and strategies.
AI advocates, like machine learning researcher Pedro Domingos, for example, have long argued that as the field evolves, so will algorithms. And like humans, it will learn to learn. Why only hedge funds, even venture capital, healthcare and technology are areas that can be run exclusively without human intervention. Looking around, it would appear that this argument has some merit. SignalFire is a data-driven venture capital firm that uses AI to analyze vast amounts of data and identify investment opportunities. Similarly, Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Hone Capital is deploying AI to identify opportunities in the tech industry. The list is now long and it seems reasonable that if algorithms can make crucial decisions, why not offer it a seat on the board where it weighs crucial decisions?
