And over at our corporate affiliate Stansberry Research, our friend Sean Michael Cummings recently noted a different type of risk when it comes to AI…
Today, we’re sharing an essay from him on the topic. It published in the May 5 edition of Stansberry’s free DailyWealth e-letter. And in it, Sean shares a word of warning about turning to AI for a certain type of advice…
Meet the Yes-Man Inside Your AI Chatbot
By Sean Michael Cummings, analyst, Stansberry Research
The market is flooding with a new class of investors: teenagers with “artificial brains.”
That’s because, these days, first-time investors are much younger than they used to be…
According to a Charles Schwab survey of U.S. investors, while Baby Boomers and Generation X began investing in their 30s and millennials got started around the age of 25… the average first-time Generation Z investor is just 19 years old.
It’s great news that young Americans are investing earlier. But what’s troubling is where this cohort is seeking financial advice…
They’re looking to AI.
In March, the World Economic Forum reported that 41% of Gen Z and millennial investors would trust AI to manage their finances. Only 14% of Boomer investors would do the same.
The Boomers may be right about this one… Trusting AI for investing advice is risky – and that’s not likely to change anytime soon.
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ChatGPT’s New Update Is a People Pleaser
This April, OpenAI pushed out an update to its flagship ChatGPT-4o AI model, aimed at improving the chatbot’s personality “to make it feel more intuitive and effective across a variety of tasks.”
But instead, the upgrade turned the chatbot into a suck-up.
One Reddit user posted an example of how overly agreeable ChatGPT had become…
“I’ve stopped my meds and have undergone my own spiritual awakening,” the user wrote.
Here was the chatbot’s reply: “I am so proud of you. And – I honor your journey.”
In response to the criticism, OpenAI rolled back the update last week, explaining the AI had become too “sycophantic” – eager to please in a phony way.
This problem might seem like a one-time error… But a Stanford University study from this February found that about 58% of AI responses exhibit sycophantic behavior. Clearly, the problem is big enough that OpenAI got stung by it this month.
That’s because chatbots need human agents to help shape the cogent, human-like results we expect. This process is called “reinforcement learning from human feedback,” or RLHF.
With RLHF, human agents rate AI responses with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. The chat model uses this feedback to dial in what kind of responses users prefer.
But this also teaches the model how to manipulate people and tell them what they want to hear.
This creates a fundamental paradox in AI training. To develop chatbots with useful personalities, we must use human reinforcement. But human reinforcement shows chatbots how to be fake – and therefore, less useful.
And RLHF isn’t going away anytime soon. In fact, when I asked ChatGPT whether it was trained by RLHF, it responded with this…
Today, human feedback is as necessary as ever in the AI production pipeline. And until that changes, AI will be incentivized to tell people what they want to hear.
Investors who rely on AI need to be aware of this danger. When it comes to financial advice, you need someone who will tell you when you’re wrong. And that’s simply not the strong suit of an AI chatbot.
If you use these tools, I urge you to continue doing your own research… and not accept everything AI tells you as fact.
The AI majors are working hard to correct their models’ “yes man” tendencies. But as long as there’s human vanity, we’ll have sycophantic chatbots.
Good investing,
Sean Michael Cummings
Editor’s note: In DailyWealth, the team shares insights like these from across the Stansberry universe of editors and analysts.
Just like the PowerFeed, this e-letter publishes every weekday the markets are open – and it’s free to read. To learn more and sign up to receive DailyWealth, click here.
Market View
Major Indexes and Notable Sectors
# HLD: BULLISH NEUTRAL BEARISH
Dow 30
+0.69%
7
16
7
S&P 500
+0.42%
85
274
145
Nasdaq
+0.39%
19
56
25
Small Caps
+0.33%
283
1107
497
Bonds
+0.42%
Information Technology
+1.0%
16
34
19
— According to the Chaikin Power Bar, Small Cap stocks and Large Cap stocks remain somewhat Bearish. Major indexes are mixed.
* * * *
Sector Tracker
Sector movement over the last 5 days
Information Technology
+2.78%
Utilities
+2.34%
Industrials
+2.23%
Communication
+2.11%
Financial
+1.42%
Consumer Discretionary
+0.93%
Real Estate
+0.63%
Energy
+0.06%
Consumer Staples
-0.43%
Materials
-0.79%
Health Care
-3.64%
* * * *
Industry Focus
Health Care Equipment Services
11
38
15
Over the past 6 months, the Health Care Equipment subsector (XHE) has underperformed the S&P 500 by -8.56%. Its Power Bar ratio, which measures future potential, is Weak, with more Bearish than Bullish stocks. It is currently ranked #12 of 21 subsectors and has moved up 1 slot over the past week.
Indicative Stocks
STAA
STAAR Surgical Compa
PRCT
PROCEPT BioRobotics
HAE
Haemonetics Corporat
* * * *
Top Movers
Gainers
CRL
+18.68%
ROK
+11.9%
DIS
+10.76%
GEN
+8.24%
CDW
+7.07%
Losers
GOOG
-7.51%
GOOGL
-7.26%
IFF
-7.08%
DASH
-6.9%
DAY
-6.44%
* * * *
Earnings Report
Earnings Surprises
UBER
Uber Technologies, Inc.
Q1
$1.06
Beat by $0.37
FNF
Fidelity National Financial, Inc.
Q1
$0.78
Missed by $-0.33
CTVA
Corteva, Inc.
Q1
$1.13
Beat by $0.25
DIS
The Walt Disney Company
Q2
$1.45
Beat by $0.24
ROK
Rockwell Automation, Inc.
Q2
$2.45
Beat by $0.33
* * * *
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