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Why do traders in investment banks feel their jobs are immune from AI, etc?

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Re: Why do traders in investment banks feel their jobs are immune from AI, etc?

#31
For around eight years my primary job function was to put investment bank traders out of a job, by automating what they did.

There were still humans in charge of the algorithms, but they moved more towards Python programmers than market traders.

Many of the "old-style" traders bitched about what we did, and most moved jobs to banks that were less advanced.

(I was in the interest rates line; typical trade size is $10M)

Re: Why do traders in investment banks feel their jobs are immune from AI, etc?

#32
post #14
post #2

Because investment bankers are just salespeople? Nobody is suggesting AI will replace salespeople in the near future. I could see there being fewer grunt analysts in the future, though.

> Nobody is suggesting AI will replace salespeople in the near future. Huh? For one, investment bankers are "just salespeople" in the same way doctors are just nurses. Second, everybody and their mother is suggesting AI will replace retail level salespeople in the future. In fact lots of places, from British supermarkerts (where you can bill and pay for your purchases yourself), to Amazon's Go experiment, and numerou…

Cashiers aren't salespeople. Salespeople are people who convince you to buy something. Higher-end stores have them, grocery stores do not.

Re: Why do traders in investment banks feel their jobs are immune from AI, etc?

#33

> "Would you trust purchasing a house from a seller, without meeting/talking to them, or a single person before and throughout the purchase?" You mean I can get an unbiased look at a house in peace, compare the numbers, look at the plans, measure the humidity and do my due diligence without a sales person breathing down my neck? Hell yea. I'd pay premium for that.

I found my apartment online. Set up the meeting. Negotiated the documents and corrected them where necessary. The broker I paid 10% of my first year's rent? Apparently he bought a ticket to Paris the morning of our closing.

If you negotiated the documents yourselves, why were any broker involved ?

Re: Why do traders in investment banks feel their jobs are immune from AI, etc?

#34

For around eight years my primary job function was to put investment bank traders out of a job, by automating what they did. There were still humans in charge of the algorithms, but they moved more towards Python programmers than market traders. Many of the "old-style" traders bitched about what we did, and most moved jobs to banks that were less advanced. (I was in the interest rates line; typical trade size is $10M…

This was my first thought. Of course their jobs can be automated. Automation increases the productivity of the average employee to the point where fewer employees are needed. Investment bankers are extremely vulnerable to this given how much fat there tends to be in their organizations.

Re: Why do traders in investment banks feel their jobs are immune from AI, etc?

#35
post #6

Due diligence on the financials of a company (what investment bankers are supposed to do) is actually really hard to get right with the algorithms we have today. Much of the data and insight compiled by an I-banker today does not exist in an easily parse-able form for automated algorithms, and a substantial amount of the computation relies on common sense knowledge.

[deleted]

Re: Why do traders in investment banks feel their jobs are immune from AI, etc?

#36
post #6

Due diligence on the financials of a company (what investment bankers are supposed to do) is actually really hard to get right with the algorithms we have today. Much of the data and insight compiled by an I-banker today does not exist in an easily parse-able form for automated algorithms, and a substantial amount of the computation relies on common sense knowledge.

That explains the current state, but has little prediction value. The availability of parsable data can change at any moment either because of regulation or through market forces (either external companies providing parsable data as a service, or enough companies realising that providing plentiful parsable data about themselves attracts capital).

Once enough data is available, common sense and gut feeling can be programmed as a combination of fixed rules and machine learning.

Re: Why do traders in investment banks feel their jobs are immune from AI, etc?

#38
Honestly, maybe they just don't care? Rather, what should they do about it, what would we expect people with such huge earning potential right now to do other than push forward with the plan that works under the status quo.

Answering my own question: I'd expect bankers to save more (of their own money) in anticipation of the good times not lasting as long. More conservative types will weather the storm and spendthrifts will get wiped out.

In other words: business as usual, up until the very moment it isn't.

Re: Why do traders in investment banks feel their jobs are immune from AI, etc?

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found my apartment online. Set up the meeting. Negotiated the documents and corrected them where necessary. The broker I paid 10% of my first year's rent? Apparently he bought a ticket to Paris the morning of our closing.

If you negotiated the documents yourselves, why were any broker involved ?

For my first appartment I used a broker as well. At the end of the process I discovered their added value was less than 0. Disregarding their fee, I paid too much for the appartement and they encouraged the high price, because they just wanted to close and receive their fee. When I bought my next house I did not use a broker. That's just the way things go, you live and learn.

People are more and more selling without a broker as well, or at least they start to use cheaper brokers where you only buy the service you need.

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