Likely growth of AI - how can investors position themselves?

Prism

Investing in AI is easy. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple and Nvidia are the big players. There are some interesting non listed startups that these companies are already invested in. Job done

ChilliBob

Interesting thing sbout Thematic ETFs in this and other areas, once they are launched the 'theme' has often had it's best days.

I say that as someone who holds (still) a handful of them, thinking they will be the future.

I think tbh companies who *adopt* AI is the more interesting side of things - as they are likely to do better than their competitors, perhaps. But then I opted for the Salam fund to cover that and it hasn't done too well.

So yeah, tricky to find the winners, either on your own, or for a manager to do so... But that said I'm still considering a tiny punt just from the fun portfolio.. Perhaps

Linton

Prism said:

Investing in AI is easy. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple and Nvidia are the big players. There are some interesting non listed startups that these companies are already invested in. Job done

Yes but very little of your investments in Microsoft, Google etc are directly linked to AI. 

Prism

Linton said:

Prism said:

Investing in AI is easy. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple and Nvidia are the big players. There are some interesting non listed startups that these companies are already invested in. Job done

Yes but very little of your investments in Microsoft, Google etc are directly linked to AI. 

Maybe not revenue wise, but AI or at least machine learning is any many aspects of their products and is changing rapidly. For example, every log in to a Microsoft service is scanned by AI for abnormal behaviour. Meetings in Teams are transcoded to text and instantly translated to multiple languages, scanned for harassment and data leaks. Office has got chatGPT technology built into it. 

Its a decent enough way of benefiting from AI rather than seeking out AI startups.

Eschatologist

L&G have an index fund: Legal & General Global Robotics and

Automation Index Fund it tracks the ROBO Global® Robotics and
Automation UCITS Index https://www.roboglobal.com/

DietIrnBru

Yeah I’ve invested in Skynet, HAL and Robocop. I believe it will lead to great things. 

Malthusian

DietIrnBru said:

Yeah I’ve invested in Skynet, HAL and Robocop. I believe it will lead to great things. 

According to Roko's basilisk, a future Singularity AI would be incentivised to bring forward its own creation by eternally torturing anyone who a) knew of Roko's basilisk and b) failed to invest all their money in AI. Whether you are still alive when the AI is created does not matter, as if you are dead, the AI will resurrect you in a virtual reality.
The fact that the AI cannot change the date of its own creation when it's already happened also does not matter. Once you know the basilisk exists then you know that the decision is either a) don't invest all your money in future AI -> infinite and eternal torture or b) invest all your money in AI -> no infinite torture, and the future all-powerful AI is able to affect your decision in the present by creating the consequence in the future.
So investing all your chips in Skynet and HAL is in fact the only sensible decision.
(Neophytes to Roko's basilisk may at this point be thinking "that's really stupid" or "this is just Pascal's Wager with Skynet in place of a vengeful God". To which the answer is "you might well be right, but do you want to risk eternal torture just to score points in a philosophy debate?")

solidpro

Most stuff reported as AI is not AI at all. It's big data. It's raw computer power combined with raw, mass data. The only companies doing that are the big ones which have been around for 20 years anyway. Although for sure a few small companies will find a loophole to be able to rent, use or buy into that big processing power of big amounts of data to market something new. And then they'll be acquired by a big company. All you have to do is locate the one that is before everyone else. Easy.

True machine learning is not what you're reading about every day.

Malthusian

I gave up on the "what is and isn't AI" debate the day I was listening to the radio and they started talking about self-scanning checkouts as an example of artificial intelligence.
The problem with the Turing test is not that machines might be able to pass it but that so many humans fail it.

Millyonare

The new revolution of the past 12 months, of course, is free-of-charge "generative" AI that delivers human-grade answers to everyday folk in seconds.

From an end-user standpoint, some of the stuff that ChatGPT spits out is simply astonishing. It recently gave me an (accurate) quote for home electrical work in 10 seconds that 3 human electricians took 3 weeks to deliver.