Elliot Management: AI Is ‘Overhyped’ With ‘Few Real Uses’

Hedge fund Elliot Management is the latest financial firm to throw cold water on the AI, saying it is driving a “bubble.” AI is the hottest trend in the tech industry, with proponents sayi...
Elliot Management: AI Is ‘Overhyped’ With ‘Few Real Uses’
Written by Matt Milano

Hedge fund Elliot Management is the latest financial firm to throw cold water on the AI, saying it is driving a “bubble.”

AI is the hottest trend in the tech industry, with proponents saying it is poised to revolutionize virtually every possible corner of the market. Despite the enthusiasm, the financial market is growing increasingly weary of AI, seeing a technology that is has become a money pit with little real-world potential for a return.

In a memo to investors, seen by Financial Times, via Investing.com, Elliot said that AI is overhyped with many applications not ready for prime time.” The memo goes on to say that AI has “few real uses” aside from “summarising notes of meetings, generating reports and helping with computer coding,” is fundamentally software that has yet to return a “value commensurate with the hype.”

Elliot did not paint a much better picture for the future, saying AI apps are “never going to be cost-efficient, are never going to actually work right, will take up too much energy, or will prove to be untrustworthy.”

Golman Sach issued a report in early July, with some of its analysts reaching similar conclusions.

GS Head of Global Equity Research Jim Covello minced no words in his evaluation of AI:

Many people attempt to compare AI today to the early days of the internet. But even in its infancy, the internet was a low-cost technology solution that enabled e-commerce to replace costly incumbent solutions. Amazon could sell books at a lower cost than Barnes & Noble because it didn’t have to maintain costly brick-and-mortar locations. Fast forward three decades, and Web 2.0 is still providing cheaper solutions that are disrupting more expensive solutions, such as Uber displacing limousine services. While the question of whether AI technology will ever deliver on the promise many people are excited about today is certainly debatable, the less debatable point is that AI technology is exceptionally expensive, and to justify those costs, the technology must be able to solve complex problems, which it isn’t designed to do.

Reports have been growing that investors are growing weary of AI as concerns grow about its future while its price tag keeps growing. With names like Goldman Sachs and Elliot Management warning of an AI bubble, the tech industry could be poised for a major adjustment.

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