Strategies to beat the AI bots
A few months ago, I was teaching my classes at Stern, when my friend, Vasant Dhar, who teaches a range of classes from machine learning to data science, called me about the Damodaran Bot.
This is an AI creation, which had read everything that I had ever written, watched every webcast that I had ever posted and reviewed every valuation that I had made public. He told me that the Bot was ready for a trial run and ready to value companies. Those valuations could then be measured up against valuations done by the best students in my class.
The results of the contest are still being tabulated, I am not sure what results I would like to see. If AI values companies as well, or better, than I do, that is a strong signal that I am facing obsolescence. If it does so badly, that would be a reflection that I have failed as a teacher.
AI is the coming together of two forces — increasing (and cheaper) computing power and the cumulation of data, both quantitative and qualitative. As an AI novice, there are three dimensions on which I see it having an advantage over human beings: on mechanical/formulaic, as opposed to intuitive, work; in rule-based, rather of principle-based, disciplines; and on tasks with there is an objective answer, rather than subjective judgments. Bringing this down to the personal, the threat to your job or profession, from AI, will be greater if your job is mostly mechanical, rule-based and objective, and less if it is intuitive, principle-based and open to judgment.
