Does generative AI facilitate investor trading? Evidence from ChatGPT outages

[ProllyInfamous]

Background: I am personally a long-term value investor (a la Sir Templeton or Buffet †), but annually breakfast with a retired "numbers guy" (who's currently building his short-term trading strategy). For decades he worked finance for among the largest accounting firms in the world...

Since 2016, our mutual friend and I have been adamently suggesting he look into "this bitcoin thing" — his response was typically [disinterested].

At a recent breakfast, it was explained how "talking with ChatGPT finally convinced [him] that you guys have been correct about Bitcoin all along."

When asked "what did ChatGPT explain to you that we two humans could not?!"

His response was simply "I never got embarrassed asking the computer any finance questions, even stupid/simple ones; I've always been the finance guy with answers so I forgot how to be humble in unexplored topics."

Pretty damn humbling, indeed; now if only he had listened back in 2016 =D

†: "Time in the market beats timING the market."

[dorkwood]

> His response was simply "I never got embarrassed asking the computer any finance questions, even stupid/simple ones; I've always been the finance guy with answers so I forgot how to be humble in unexplored topics."

I think I'm the opposite. My feeling is that anything I type into ChatGPT gets stored in a database, ready to be leaked at some future date, or read by prying eyes without my knowledge. I'm more careful about what I type into it than what I say out loud in front of my friends.

Or maybe I'm just paranoid?

[kjkjadksj]

Time in the markets beats timing the market if you actually have capital to throw around to gleam a decent 5% yearly return. If you don't have much capital, you have to time the market like hell to build up your capital to a level where 5% yoy actually is a decent amount of money.

[chant4747]

> now if only he had listened back in 2016 =D

So your investments could be used to screw other people out of their money who are similarly financially illiterate/insecure?

It’s kind of crazy to me that there are somehow still staunch cryptocurrency proponents out there who have somehow ignored all the negative press it has received.

[fwip]

Another datapoint that shows that LLMs will simply repeat what everyone is saying and happily give the exact wrong answer.

[ipython]

I would be curious to hear what information it (ChatGPT) provided that changed his mind?

[joering2]

I think lately results of chat went downhill. I got used to asking "are you sure about that" after each chat answer to my question, and to most of the time the answer is "you are right, here is how I was wrong".

[simonw]

That's not a recent thing - most of the LLMs I've tried have an annoying tendency to agree with you if you question them, even if they weren't actually wrong. The term for it is "sycophancy", I think there are a few papers that talk about it.

[ec109685]

Ask a question like “Why do EVs use less electricity per mile when it is 100 than 70 degrees outside” and then reverse the question.

You’ll get two answers that totally contradict each other.

“Electric vehicles (EVs) use less electricity per mile in warmer temperatures (around 100 degrees) compared to cooler temperatures (around 70 degrees) primarily due to the following reasons:

1. *Battery Efficiency*: EV batteries operate more efficiently in warmer temperatures. Cold weather can reduce the battery's ability to hold a charge and increase internal resistance, leading to higher energy consumption.

2. *Thermal Management Systems*: In cooler temperatures, the EV’s thermal management system works harder to keep the battery at an optimal operating temperature, consuming more energy. Conversely, in warmer weather, less energy is required to maintain this temperature.

3. *Reduced Heating Requirements*: When it’s around 100 degrees, the need for cabin heating is eliminated, whereas at 70 degrees, some heating might still be required for comfort, consuming additional energy.

4. *Air Conditioning Efficiency*: While air conditioning is used more in hotter weather, modern EVs are designed to be highly efficient in cooling compared to heating, leading to lower overall energy consumption even when the AC is in use.

These factors combined result in lower electricity consumption per mile in warmer conditions compared to cooler ones.”

Reversed:

“ Electric vehicles (EVs) use more electricity per mile in extreme temperatures (both hot and cold) due to the increased energy demands of their climate control systems. Here’s why:

1. *Air Conditioning in Hot Weather:* When it’s 100 degrees outside, the EV’s air conditioning system has to work harder to cool the cabin to a comfortable temperature. This requires additional energy from the battery.

2. *Battery Cooling:* High temperatures can affect the performance and longevity of the battery. To protect the battery, the EV’s thermal management system will actively cool the battery, consuming more electricity.

3. *Increased Resistance:* High temperatures can slightly increase the electrical resistance in the battery and other components, which can lead to marginally higher energy consumption.

In contrast, at a moderate temperature like 70 degrees, the demands on the air conditioning and thermal management systems are much lower, resulting in more efficient energy use.”

[Arn_Thor]

I don’t understand how this is a surprise to so many people. The thing can’t reason. If you point out an error, even if it’s real, the GPT doesn’t suddenly “see” the error. It constructs a reply of the likeliest series of words in a conversation where someone told it “you did X wrong”. Its training material probably contains more forum posts admitting a screw-up than a “nuh-huh” response. And on top of that it is trained to be subservient.

Because it doesn’t _understand_ the mistake in the way a human would, it can’t react reliably appropriately

[jazzyjackson]

chatgpt has never stood up for itself, if you express doubt it will defer and say it must by mistaken even when it's correct

[sixhobbits]

Love this idea. Would be great to see how it applies to twitter (e.g. reduction of tweets during GPT outages) but I guess that twitter data is hard to get now

[exitb]

Hypothetically speaking, if a chat provider used a Golden Gate Claude [1] technique to essentially create and pump a meme stock, is that a fraud?

[1] https://www.anthropic.com/news/golden-gate-claude

[vouaobrasil]

1. Set up LLM to give financial advice on which stocks to trade. 2. Secretly read the results and use the information to make your own trades 3. Profit!

[2Gkashmiri]

How would this work in the market, I am Curious to try it

[mebutnotme]

It could be news parsing, where it can turn news article text into data points that an investment model could imply market signals from.

Something similar could happen with transcripts of company investor calls, or any other text/audio companies put out. With the right prompt you can turn text into signals, the trick would be getting that prompt right (and prompt engineering to limit hallucinations as much as possible).

[aweektogetit]

Could see it being used for data analysis when doing sourcing, plenty of AI-powered datascience notebooks out there

[DeltaCoast]

This looks so fun! I had not considered getting an apple watch until now. I mostly just use my phone for spotify and maps.

[LeoPanthera]

Wrong thread, probably.