Hedge Fund Boss Ken Griffin Says AI Hype Not Warranted

June 9, 2023

AI has made waves this year following the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT last November, creating a global frenzy, which Citadel CEO and founder Ken Griffin thinks is unwarranted.

While the hedge fund billionaire holds AI has potential to transform the way things are done across sectors globally, he still thinks proponents of AI are over-hyping the industry.

Also read: US Firms Scramble to Hire Generative AI Talent, Job Listings Soar

This year has seen a number of AI tools and applications being poured into the market from AI image generations and editing, to music generations, text generation among many other tools.

However, according to a CNBC report, Griffin thinks this kind of hype is being blown out of proportion as the industry is still growing.

“I do think the AI community is making a terrible mistake by being full of hype on the near-term implications of generative AI,” said Griffin.

“I think they’re actually doing everybody a huge disservice with the level of hype they are creating.” Griffin was speaking during an event for Citadel’s new class of interns in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Can AI stocks be ignored?

Following the launch of ChatGPT to immediate success – producing human like responses, tech giants from across the globe have also been scrambling to tap into this industry investing billions of dollars towards enhancing their products and services using AI.

From Google, Microsoft, Apple to Chinese search engine giant Baidu, the AI race has intensified this year and everyone wants to be tops.

So much has the interest grown that some listed tech firms have cashed in on this hype, with chip maker – Nvidia’s total market cap ballooning to $1 trillion. Citadel itself, which has a massive $59 billion in investment capital, invests in Nvidia and increased its position in the counter by 55% in the first quarter of this year.

The stock has jumped by over 150% on a year to date basis, thanks to its chips that power the AI industry.

According to research firm The Motley Fool, anyone planning to invest in AI stocks “should listen to Griffin.” In fact, they should start investing now as the industry “is just getting started.” The sector provides ample opportunities for long term investors.

AI and the job market

While AI has potential to transform the way businesses operate across sectors, there have been fears the same may also cause massive job losses.

But Griffin thinks the idea is far-fetched. Given that the technology is still in its early days of major success, the billionaire believes that there is still too much to be done and the day when jobs are completely lost to AI tech is still far from reality.

Griffin said AI tech won’t be taking jobs as soon as some tech companies are putting it out.

“If you listen to the CEOs of tech companies, it’s going to eliminate millions of white-collar jobs, I say, ‘Not that fast.’ Some professions are accepting of errors, but you have to be really accurate in finance. You have to be really accurate as a lawyer.”

While the number of AI tools has greatly increased, the threat of job losses due to these tools still remain low. These tools still make errors and cannot comprehend some issues in the same manner humans would do.

As previously reported by MetaNews, a US lawyer got into trouble after using bogus citations by ChatGPT in a case his law firm was working on. As a result of this debacle, a Texas federal Judge Brantley Starr ordered that all AI research in his courtroom be declared and checked by humans.

Heavy Impact on programming

Asked by interns which sectors will be most affected by AI, Griffin picked programming and software engineering.

“Programming is going to be a big target for generative AI,” he said.

“You want to make sure that if you are a software engineer, you are putting yourself really close to the domain problems that need to be solved. Your career path will be defined by your ability to solve problems.