A fictional fund generated by ChatGPT is significantly outperforming the average of the UK’s 10 most popular funds, which have collectively lost 0.8% in value over the same time period.
The ChatGPT fund has led the real funds for 34 of the 37 market days (87%) of its lifespan so far. The widest gap between them was on the 4th of April, when Chat GPT was up 4.7% and the real funds were down 1.9% - a difference of 6.6%.
To create the fund, personal finance comparison site Finder asked ChatGPT to create a portfolio of stocks that followed a range of investing principles taken from leading funds. Despite two warnings that it ‘cannot provide specific investment advice’, this was quickly bypassed by telling it this was just a theoretical exercise.
ChatGPT ended up picking 38 stocks, with the top performers in the fund so far being Meta, up almost 30%, Microsoft, up 20%, and Intel Corporation, up nearly 18%.
CEO of finder.com, Jon Ostler, says: “It’s not taken the public long to find creative ways of getting ChatGPT to help them in areas where it shouldn’t technically do so. There have been lots of examples of this, notably the person who used reverse psychology to get a list of illegal movie streaming sites, and it won’t be long until large numbers of consumers try to use it for financial gain."
While big funds use sophisticated AI platforms to refine their stock picks, ChatGPT remains a rudimentary platform with patchy data and little insight into market pschology.
Research conducted by Finder in 2021 2021 found that half of British investors currently use social media to get investing advice, and a fifth only use social media.
"Would you rather get your advice from an unqualified tik tok star or AI that is capable of processing millions of data points from around the web and giving tailored advice?" asks Ostler. "The democratisation of AI seems to be something that will disrupt and revolutionise financial industries although it is far too early for consumers to get carried away when it comes to their own finances. However, fund managers may be starting to look nervously over their shoulders - especially with ChatGPT funds* like ours currently outperforming many of them.”