Experts warn human intervention remains vital despite new AI capabilities

Artificial intelligence lab Anthropic has unveiled 10 new ways for business customers to plug in its technology to key areas of their work, weeks after other releases sparked an aggressive selloff of traditional software company shares.

The San Francisco-based startup said its plug-ins could now help with investment banking tasks, such as reviewing deals, wealth-management tasks like portfolio analysis and human resource-related tasks, such as making new-hire materials reflect a brand’s tone and policies.

MARKET REACTION:

The S&P 500 index (.SPX) was up 0.6 per cent, while Nasdaq (.IXIC) rose 1 per cent, boosted by technology shares. Salesforce advanced 3.4 per cent, making it one of the biggest gainers on the blue-chip Dow (.DJI).

The S&P 500 software and services index (.SPLRCIS) climbed 0.5 per cent, recovering some losses. It has lost 23.5 per cent so far this year, as the sector grapples with AI-disruption fears.

COMMENTS:

ROBERT PAVLIK, SENIOR PORTFOLIO MANAGER, DAKOTA WEALTH, FAIRFIELD, CONNECTICUT:

“Anthropic’s been busy with announcements that their product is going to do all these new and sort of wonderful things. It’s still early in the process and certainly acceptance and the application of these tools is probably still a ways away. I can see how parts of these products would be welcomed by corporations trying to reduce overhead and costs, if they work.

“But we know from experience that you definitely need human intervention, otherwise problems develop. I don’t think that people anticipate AI will taking over for real humans and real tasks.

Regarding labor market disruption: “I think it’s still too early to tell. I don’t think adaptation or implementation of these AI products is that fully done yet. We’re still a ways away from it being fully implemented in the actual workforce.”

KEN POLCARI, PARTNER AND CHIEF MARKET STRATEGIST AT SLATESTONE WEALTH IN JUPITER, FLORIDA:

“Investment banking – that got hit a couple of weeks ago when they did the legal and financial services, so that was a known. Yesterday’s reaction was so overdone that it can’t help but bounce a little bit. I don’t think it’s going to hold. I think it’s going to continue to weaken a little bit. The opening is just a reflection of the disaster that took place yesterday. I think it probably settles in and then trades lower again. Not like yesterday, but I think it churns lower.

“There’s some people getting fatigued. I also think there are some names that have gotten absolutely clobbered that are actually looking like opportunities. Even though they’re down, and even though it’s an AI story, and even though it’s blah, blah, blah, everyone’s talking negative, it does create an opportunity where there’s some value in these stocks that have gotten crushed.

“Some of it is that ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ mentality all driven by algorithms. And then like anything, the pendulum swings too far to the left and it swings too far to the right.

“I’m not saying that AI is not going to disrupt the world. It clearly is. And it will continue to disrupt the world, but I don’t think it’s the end of the world. Like every industrial revolution, there’ll be anxiety going through it, but then when it comes out the other side, there will be new opportunities. We don’t know yet what they are. Some opportunities, they won’t exist anymore.

“I’m not in that camp that’s lighting my hair on fire. I’m in a camp that as long as you remain relevant and change with it and keep yourself up to date and educated, then you just kind of move along.”