Marketing and hype have, as they would say `synergised` in recent decades under new media. Which sadly distracts from the analysis of companies, which is why valuation of companies is more based on PR over assets. I would go as far as calling it hypedinflation, as all that money that ends up in the market, comes from consumers in the end.

So saying AI is the biggest threat to the S&P is glossing over the root causes. Analysts, getting sucked into the marketing hype, are self-fulfilling in that some people go on their recommendations. After all, in the past if a bank was questioned about how stable it is, could easily see a domino of withdrawals that snowballs into actualy becomming unstable, even if it wasn't before.

I don't think those words come from ads, rather than investor reports and calls.

From the linked PDF:

> This report uses a range of cutting-edge LLM-assisted data techniques to extract key risk information from S&P 500 company filings. Following the recent boom in generative AI, we examine reported risks from these leading firms related to artificial intelligence. We clarify the extent to which firms are reporting new AI related risks, what kind of risks are being reported and what these indicate about the broader dynamics of AI in big business.

This is unrelated to marketing departments.

Yeah, public concerns are often diametrically opposed to corporate concerns.

> less jobs is "good" for business

Up to a point. Then you no longer have customers.

Lower expenses is good for business. Not having to pay employees lowers expenses.

But a business needs paying customers, preferably employed by someone else. Other businesses having to pay their employees is good for business in this regard.

There's a reason Henry Ford paid his employees enough to buy one of his cars.

It's already about 80% whitespace.

I think it doesn't even pass the bar of an undergraduate research paper.

To add to your comment: I think you could probably post an article with white space with a title "AI is going to kill [fill in the blank]" and it will at least initiate a discussion these days.

It might've been written by an LLM. I'm not joking.

And, so what?

It’s free to list AI as a risk in a 10K filing to the SEC.

It’s a lot more expensive to pay out a securities fraud settlement if you don’t list it and then suffer a loss that can be pinned on ‘AI’.

Facebook once listed "adoption of mobile devices" in the "Risks" section of their reports.

Yes, the risks part of a 10-K is usually pretty comprehensive, and includes all kinds of things that may or may not be an issue: that's why they're risks, and not problems or showstoppers or something. Many of the 10-Ks I've read enumerate tons of things that have a very low chance of happening.

I'd be curious about the position of these segments in the 10-Ks, like, if they're suddenly all at the top, that's much more interesting than being tacked on to the end.

Here are some S&P 500 companies that are doomed:

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Interpublic_Group_of_Compa...

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnicom_Group

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Bros._Discovery

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Corporation

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramount_Global

I'm sure there are a lot more.

Yeah, but AI will be banned before that happens.

What AI? ML with gradient descent? Neural nets with deep learning? LLMs? Or the abstract concept of AGI that may or may not possible, but definitely isn't here yet?

Hedge funds and investment banks are already using these tools to the max, and the markets are plenty profitable for everyone

It would be a reductio ad absurdum for the stock market which is long overdue.

You do realize that all the math used in AI/ML has been heavily used in Finance for decades right?

Everything is Applied Math if you squint hard enough.

All this AI/ML doomerism and boosterism is ridiculous. If you do not understand how gradient descent works or why as of today GPUs are better suited for model training compared to CPUs you should not have a say in this discussion.

Most conversations around AI/ML appear to basically be pop-philosophy discussions that aren't even that grounded in philosophy fundamentals.

If you have trash fundamentals, you will have a trash understanding of the world.

trading =/= investing

They already use models for trading better than any human and have probably done so since the 1950s. And what do you know, wealth accumulation has been significant over the last 70 years.

RenTec did this successfully, but their strategies didn't scale up beyond ~$30B AUM before they started moving their markets too much (with the Medallion Fund).

I think what will happen is that ordinary people will invest in a mutual fund managed by AI and/or the funds people already invest in will start adopting AI-tooling.

I think this scenario is plausible because the path to this scenario is so smooth so it will be the default outcome unless something strange happens to prevent it.

Economy grows from increased labor and capital investment. If AI is a "cheaper" alternative, ie. is more efficient with respect to capital, it needs less labor for the same output.

But now think about how most of the population can afford their lifestyle, ie. buying stuff from S&P 500 companies: selling their time as labor.