http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/the-ro…
The article is about a Harvard grad who's start up, Kenshu, (all of 3 fkn years old) pulls data from the BLS (among other things) and predicts investment performance based on that. Some Goldman employees are using it as their own analyst, not necessarily eliminating the need for analysts but greatly reducing their value. I'm sure there are other programs like this, and I'm nowhere near even knowledgeable about trading, but this is crazy to me. A little scary. I'm sure other programs exist that do the same thing, I'm not knowledgeable enough about the industry to know though.
It then talks about predicted layoffs, referencing Antony Jenkins (Barclay's chief executive officer that got the can this summer) prediction that around 50% of jobs in the financial sector will be done away with in the next 10-20 years or some crazy shit like that.
That's a terrible two paragraph synopsis but it gets the point across.
I don't agree that automating one part of a job completely eliminates the need for the job itself, which is another thing the article talks about/agrees with, but it's tough not to be a bit skeptical about the future.
Thoughts? Anyone have experience with this/something like this on a trading desk and have an opinion on it?
