Robots will soon make bankers and many more jobs totally redundant

[garbon]

In my experience with IT, I'm almost always given: "We had to start you up on a new hard drive as your former one was too far gone" with either all my data on new drive or all my data lost.

[Neil]

That said, why would investment bankers go away?  Sure, they can run the con by machine, but a big part of it is having the con-man to lie and cheat his clients.

[DontSayBanana]

I don't see anything in this description that would be a big hit to human investment bankers, just on some of the back office IT folks. Even there I am dubious based on my own admittedly anecdotal interactions with corporate IT systems. 

On the contrary.  If an algorithm designer can quantify an acceptable set of rules on when to buy, when to sell, and when to hold with at least slight predictable gains, that predictability and the massively decreased cost of labor would be a huge market incentive to automate the process.  Computers don't have fat fingers and wouldn't get jittery while taking a huge gamble on volatile market data.

Generally speaking, the boss is going to take a predictable $0.10 yield each day for seven days over a flat line for six days with a possible $1 yield based on a risky investment on day seven.

[Siege]

Don't forget I was the first one to mention the Technological Singularity here in Languish.
I demand to be acknowledged as The Great Siegularity.

[Ed Anger]

 

[DontSayBanana]

Don't forget I was the first one to mention the Technological Singularity here in Languish.
I demand to be acknowledged as The Great Siegularity.

We're talking about a sector of the workforce, not the entirety of human culture.  If that was the requirement, the technological singularity could arguably already be in progress and have begun with the automation of automobile factories back in the '70s.


When the singularity does happen, if you're going to demand such a dorky title, I'll be happy to oblige, though.

[Ideologue]

The perfect intelligences that outlive humanity will keep Siege around as a reminder of why they nuked the rest of us.

[The Minsky Moment]

On the contrary.  If an algorithm designer can quantify an acceptable set of rules on when to buy, when to sell, and when to hold with at least slight predictable gains, that predictability and the massively decreased cost of labor would be a huge market incentive to automate the process.  Computers don't have fat fingers and wouldn't get jittery while taking a huge gamble on volatile market data.

Assume that it is possible to create a reliable and safe algorithm that can "manage" itself along the lines you suggest.  Very quickly they would arbitrage all gains away.  So then the next arms race would be hiring the teams of math and computer whizzes to design ever more fiendishly complex semi-autonomous algorithms.  More hires, more salary

Meanwhile the nonquant side of the business would still be steaming along for the same reason it always has -- algorithms are limited in dealing with the vagaries and irrationalities of the human behavior that drives markets