현재 91세이신 마코비치 교수님이 인공지능을 인공바보라고 말씀하시네요

인공지능은 단지 컴퓨터 프로그램이지 신비한 지능을 끌어내는 마법의 특효약이 아니라고 강조하시네요.

출처 : https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2019/04/15/harry-markowitz-talks-mpt-robos-and-where-hes-invested-now/?cmp=share_twitter%3Fcmp_share%3Dshare_facebook&fbclid=IwAR0Zgm9grlnVyKn5l0LWAZUPK3ewG9rlrzjeedT9vzqCfnA3W3IWfb6DPKA

Q&A

Where Harry Markowitz, Father of Modern Portfolio Theory, Is Invested Now

The 91-year-old Nobel winner also told ThinkAdvisor that AI should stand for "artificial idiocy."

By Jane Wollman Rusoff | 4월 15, 2019 at 11:01 오전

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Nobel Memorial Prize winner Harry Markowitz. (Photo via Harry Markowitz)

Nobel Prize winner Harry Markowitz, who conceived Modern Portfolio Theory, is 91 years old, boasts a list of corporate clients as long as your arm and has no intention of keeping his controversial views to himself, as evidenced in an interview with ThinkAdvisor.

For starters, here’s what Professor Markowitz thinks of artificial intelligence, the darling of multiple industries: “Artificial intelligence — quote-unquote — is artificial idiocy,” he argues. “There’s no magic elixir that somehow the Sorcerer’s Apprentice is conjuring up mysterious intelligence. It’s a [computer] program!”

In 1990, Markowitz, then a professor at the City University of New York, received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for developing MPT. The award was shared with professors Merton Miller and William Sharpe for their work in financial economics. The previous year, Markowitz won the Von Neumann Award from the Operations Research Society of America. Operations research applies mathematical and computer techniques to solving problems of business and government.

Throughout the years, the Chicago native has focused on using such techniques to find answers to practical problems, especially those relating to “business decisions under uncertainty,” as he writes.

In the interview, he discusses MPT, the vagaries of securities investing and why he shifted to virtually all equities when hurricanes hit the U.S. in 2017. He also talks about the virtues of robo-advisors and what human FAs should bear in mind when it comes to MPT’s risk-reward curve.

A research associate at The Rand Corp. in 1952, Markowitz wrote a paper he called “Portfolio Selection,” whose contents would become known as Modern Portfolio Theory. Quant analyst Barr Rosenberg, an early advocate, gave it the MPT name, Markowitz recalls.

His article, published in the Journal of Finance in March 1952, showed diversification — that is, the use of uncorrelated asset classes and other considerations — as a way to invest optimally while reducing risk. In 1959, he expanded the theory into a book, “Portfolio Selection: Efficient Diversification of Investments.”

MPT, anchored in buy-and-hold, would become synonymous with investing efficiency and was widely adopted by the financial services industry.

In 1984, a year after leaving the research staff of IBM, Markowitz founded Harry Markowitz Co., now based in San Diego. His current clients include Hudson Bay Capital, Invesco Group Services, Loring Ward Financial, Personal Capital and Research Affiliates. And he is on the advisory boards of the financial wellness system Acorns, Skyview Investment Advisors and Index Fund Advisors, among others.

Markowitz has held teaching posts at The City University of New York’s Baruch College; Rutgers University; the University of California, Los Angeles; and the Wharton School, among other colleges and universities. Most recently — 2007 until early this year — he was an adjunct professor at the Rady School of Management at UC San Diego.

In the private sector, he was a consultant to General Electric between two stints as research associate at the Rand Corp.

On top of making shrewd stock market investments, Markowitz has built wealth through real estate. Last year, he purchased an Alpine, California, house and the land it’s on, which he uses solely for entertaining. Cost: $1.60 million. He now estimates that package to be worth a total of $4 million to $5 million.

His main residence, bought for under $500,000, has likely now appreciated to $1 million, he says. And a small condo that he accesses mainly for midday napping (“I go to bed at 2 a.m.”) is worth about $360,000. He paid less than $300,000 for it.

Dr. Markowitz is looking ahead to celebrating his 92nd birthday this August. It’s not unreasonable to expect that that will happen at a big party in his Alpine mountain home, which features a $60,000 Steinway concert grand. He calls the picturesque digs his “cabin in the sky.”

ThinkAdvisor recently interviewed the industry pioneer, on the phone from his main San Diego residence. Sipping a Starbucks venti latte, he explained elements of MPT, quoted Shakespeare and noted that it was someone else who named his seminal work Modern Portfolio Theory.

Here are highlights of our conversation:

THINKADVISOR: How would you describe yourself?

HARRY MARKOWITZ: I’m an economist. I’m also an operations research guy. I’m also a computer guy. With my article, “Portfolio Selection,” I created the portfolio theory industry. [The late economist] Merton Miller said my article was the Big Bang [theory] of modern finance.

What are your thoughts about artificial intelligence?

Artificial intelligence — quote-unquote — is artificial idiocy. Suppose you knew somebody who could drive from Point A to Point B without hitting anyone but couldn’t butter a slice of bread. Suppose you knew someone else who could play chess at a champion level but couldn’t drive from Point A to Point B. He would be an idiot savant.

So what are you getting at?

There’s no magic elixir that somehow the Sorcerer’s Apprentice is conjuring up mysterious intelligence. It’s a program! It follows somebody’s rules. Programs are based on theories. And they may have a bug: A very large airplane carrying lots of people encounters a bug in the artificial intelligence being used to help fly the plane — [people] die.

Many fear that AI and robots will take over the world.

If you get malicious programs, you get malicious results.

Do robo-advisors and the principles on which they operate use MPT?

Sure. They’re a way to bring advice to the masses. Robo-advisors can give good advice or bad advice. If the advice is good, great. As an institution, robo-advisors are extremely useful, like hedge funds as an institution are extremely useful.

Please discuss diversification as the heart of Modern Portfolio Theory.

We’re trying to minimize risk for a given return, so we want to diversify. It’s clear that not putting all your eggs in one basket is [what to do]. Even in [the 16th century], Shakespeare knew about diversification: In “The Merchant of Venice,” when [Salarino] asks Antonio if his business is making him glum, he says: “Believe me, no. I thank my fortune for it. My ventures are not in one bottom trusted [not invested in one entity only].”

Why is diversification fundamental?

To get a high return for given risk, you have to diversify. There’s a trade-off between risk and return. Man has faced risk since the days of the saber-toothed tiger. If you don’t face risk, you can’t go out and gather food or shoot tigers and bears. Man was born in a risky world and remains in a risky world. Ten years from now, it will be a risky world as long as you want to earn money and invest money.

Diversification is indeed a strategy with which financial advisors are familiar. What’s key for them to remember?

The biggest [issue] with advisors is to make sure that individual clients are at the right place on the [risk-return trade-off] curve that’s subject to the kinds of restrictions and needs they have.

Some people believe there’s no need to diversify. Your thoughts?

They come to sorrow.

Do you think a U.S. recession will hit soon?

Yes, of course. But the question is: When?

This bull market has been extremely long, though we did have a correction — and then it came back.

I predicted that. It was obvious it was going to happen. When the [2017] hurricanes hit Houston and Florida, I sold my bonds except for some tax-exempt or tax-deferred ones. I [figured] all that damage had to be rebuilt. I went all-equity. It was the “Markowitz Bet.” I [deduced] that the building industry had to rebuild Texas, Florida and then Puerto Rico [after Hurricane Maria].

What stocks did you buy?

I went into three asset classes: big-cap, small-cap and emerging markets. In big-cap, I bought six individual stocks [including] Caterpillar; 3M; and elevator companies, like Otis. I [also] bought [building products maker] U.S. Gypsum.

Did you win your bet?

The equities had a big spike and then came down, but I remained long. I got out of almost all my bonds, even tax-deferred or nontaxable ones because they were paying little. And I’ve been waiting.

For what?

When long-term tax exempt bonds get to 4%, I’m going to rebalance. I’m just letting it ride and ignoring the bond market until interest rates come up to a level that interests me.

How much longer can this bull carry on?

The bull market has lasted an awfully long time. It’s got to come down — someday. Markets go up; markets come down. There’s a natural cycle: People are enthusiastic, and the market goes up, up, up. The dumb money buys on the assumption that it’s going to go up further. Suddenly, people realize it’s overvalued, and it comes down faster than it went up. Then they decide it’s gone too low, and now it’s time to go up again.

What do investors do at that point?

Sell on the assumption that it’s going to go down further — whereas the smart money rebalances. All you have to do is rebalance. You can’t lose.

What do you think of technical analysis?

I don’t pay attention to it.

What are your thoughts about behavioral finance? That discipline, per se, didn’t exist in 1952, when you wrote your paper on Portfolio Selection.

What makes you think it didn’t exist in 1952? I wrote three papers in 1952. One was called “The Utility of Wealth,” which behavioral finance [experts] say was the first behavioral finance article.

When Daniel Kahneman [psychologist and economist author of “Thinking, Fast and Slow”] and Amos Tversky [late psychologist and Kahneman’s collaborator] were experimenting, there were things they couldn’t explain. Then Tversky remembered the then-25-year-old paper I wrote, “The Utility of Wealth.”

What was the crux of it?

I said that if you’re trying to explain actual behavior — not theoretical behavior — the utility [value] is not attached to the level of wealth but to the change in wealth. And there’s an inflection point at a certain place. Kahneman says this was truly a behavioral piece — and it was. So I play both sides.

You’re now completing Volume 3 of a four-volume series, “Risk-Return Analysis” (McGraw-Hill Education- Vol. I, 2013; Vol. II, 2016). What’s your writing routine?

I mostly write my books at Bruegger’s Bagels. I arrive at about 11 a.m., get a large cup of coffee and sit there writing by hand. Then I give it to my secretary, who types it up.

Are you still teaching at UC San Diego?

No, I just retired. When I was lecturing last quarter and signaled to change the slide, I started to fall asleep before [they put it up]. So I thought: That’s it — I’m retiring. I’m a night owl: I go to bed at 2 a.m. and get up at 8. I’ll be 92 on August 24. I like to take naps.

You grew up in Chicago the only child of grocery store owners. Do you think being a singleton had a big impact on your becoming a high achiever?

I was just a nerd.

2018년 한해동안 구글과 아마존, 소프트뱅크 등의 거대 글로벌 IT기업들이 보험산업에 쏟아부은 투자가 어마어마합니다.
구글은 클라우드기반의 보험정보를 취급하는 보험대리점들의 주식을 사들였고, 인공지능 머신러닝 등을 통해 보험정보를 다루는 것에 대한 투자에 많은 관심을 쏟고있다고 합니다.
아마존의 경우 영국에서 보험가격 비교사업에 뛰어들고 세계각국에서 배달된 물품에 대한 보험, 가계보험 등에 직접 참여할 기세입니다....
미국 J.D. Power라는 회사의 설문조사에 의하면 소비자의 20%가 구글이나 아마존이 제공하는 가계보험에 가입을 선호한다고 합니다. 그리고 보험을 넘어 은행산업 진출도 가시화되고 있습니다.

출처 : https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2019/01/02/513324.htm?fbclid=IwAR1aVk7CxTcxxo9MniYDpTFBYI7UbbTyxWCxI8yCHEy-mJ_EGKCiLvwtD9k

How Big Tech Flirted with Insurance in 2018

January 2, 2019

 

The almost weekly headlines about insurers and venture capitalists investing in insurtechs and tech-savvy insurance startups sometimes blocked the view of what established big technology firms were doing in insurance.

During 2018, giant technology firms Google and Amazon showed renewed interest in insurance and generated speculation about their insurance intentions going forward.

Google invested in a major insurance agency technology company and expressed interest in investing in additional insurance enterprises. Amazon teamed with two large employers in an ambitious undertaking to completely reimagine the nation’s health care and insurance system. Amazon also showed interest in creating an insurance comparison website in the United Kingdom.

Meanwhile, consumers continued to warm to the notion of buying their insurance from Google or Amazon.

For traditionalists, there was one comfort: transportation tech firm Uber signaled it has no interest in getting into the insurance business. However, investor Softbank is interested in new ways to sell insurance to the clients of Uber and similar platforms.

Here is a recap of stories from 2018 about big technology courting big insurance:

Google Invests in Insurance Agency Software Firm Applied Systems

Giant Google’s investment arm purchased a minority stake in Applied Systems, a provider of insurance technology and cloud-based software for independent agencies. Applied Systems CEO Reid French confirmed that Google/CapitalG will become minority investor, while adding that Google/CapitalG’s financial stake is significant. “It’s not small,” Reid said of the investment. “They made a legitimate commitment … it’s real money.” Applied Systems reassured its clients, independent insurance agents, that they should welcome, not fear, Google’s involvement with the firm. In return for the Alphabet/Google/CapitalG investment, Applied Systems gains access to Google expertise in areas including artificial intelligence, machine learning and digital marketing but, according to French, Google will not b able to tap into any of Applied Systems’ insurance data residing in the cloud or within various customer applications. “There are many agents that have wanted to have greater access to high technology. The vast majority will view this, with the facts, as super-duper positive for Applied and for the industry,” French said.

Google ‘Definitely’ Interested in Other Insurtech Investments Following Applied Systems

Google is eager to invest in other insurance technology companies well beyond its newly announced minority stake in Applied Systems. “We really like the market,” said Jesse Wedler, a principal with CapitalG, the growth equity investment fund of Google’s parent Alphabet. “We will definitely be looking for additional investments in the insurance technology space.” Wedler said the search would be for other businesses like Applied. “Broadly speaking, the software businesses addressing the insurance market are interesting to us,” Wedler said. He emphasized, however, that potential investment targets won’t be rivals of Applied.

1-in-5 Consumers Say They’d Use Amazon or Google for Home Insurance

One-in-five consumers say they would use Amazon or Google for their home insurance, a J.D. Power survey showed. And most of those who took the survey (80 percent) already have insurance with a large national carrier. Both Google and Amazon have been previously pegged as potential insurance market entrants despite a Google failure in the space. J.D. Powers believes that wasn’t the last of the firm’s efforts to get into the insurance business.

Amazon Weighs Formation of UK Insurance Comparison Website

Reuters reported that Amazon is gauging the interest level of Europe’s top insurance firms in contributing products to a UK price comparison website. While it was not immediately clear what type of insurance would be sold on any Amazon site, home and motor policies are popular sellers on existing UK price comparison sites. “As Amazon becomes a larger part of the home, whether it’s products delivered to the home, security monitoring, home services like Wi-Fi installation, you can make the case that insurance is the next logical step for this company,” said Morningstar analyst R.J. Hottovy.

Travelers Teams with Amazon to Offer Smart Home Products, Insurance Quotes

Speaking of the home product market as an entranceway into insurance, The Travelers Companies Inc. announced it is teaming up with Amazon in selected states to offer smart home kits, insurance quotes and risk management information through a digital storefront: Amazon.com/Travelers. Customers may obtain smart home kits that include security cameras, water sensors, motion detectors and a smart home hub at discounted prices. Consumers interested in a home insurance quote are directed from the Travelers storefront on Amazon to the company’s website or to an independent insurance agent. In addition, Travelers independent agents can use Travelers and Amazon co-branded products to market to customers about smart home technology.

No Reason for Insurer Panic Over Amazon… Yet

Should insurers be worried about Amazon disrupting insurance as it has retail? At the S&P Global Ratings insurance conference, analysts said there’s no reason to panic. If Amazon does offer home insurance, it would probably start small with “simple, bare-bones” coverage, said one analyst, who also questioned whether the e-tailer would even take such a step. “Does Amazon really want to get regulated? I don’t think they do.”

After Amazon Conquers Banking, Insurance Could be Next

Tech companies pose a challenge to banks. Amazon is reported to be in talks with JPMorgan Chase and other big retail banks to create a checking-account-like offering aimed at younger adults and those without checking accounts. This move would build on the company’s initial forays into financial products over recent years and be the start of its venturing into lending, mortgages, property/casualty insurance, wealth management and term life insurance, according to consultants at Bain & Co.

JPMorgan, Amazon, Berkshire Venture to Target Health Issues Using Data, Technology

JPMorgan Chase & Co., Amazon.com Inc., and Berkshire Hathaway will focus on the biggest health issues threatening the U.S. economy in their new joint venture, including aligning healthcare payments with employee health and addressing chronic diseases, CEO Jamie Dimon said. The three giant firms announced in January that they would form a venture that would use technology to try to cut healthcare costs for their employees, and potentially open the venture to other companies. Dimon said the company would focus on using big data, virtual technology, better customer engagement and more consumer choice to address critical problems and issues.”

Softbank Plans Big Push into Insurance Investments

Softbank is not a tech firm itself but it is a major investor in tech-based insurance firms. In the past year, it backed China’s largest online insurer ZhongAn as well as PolicyBazaar, India’s biggest online insurance seller, as well as U.S. home insurer Lemonade. Softbank sees the insurance sector as ripe for disruption and believes insurtechs can partner with other firms within its portfolio including Uber and office sharing firm WeWork to sell new products and services to their clients.

Relax, Uber’s Not Interested in Entering Insurance Business

While it is weighing providing benefits and insurance to its independent contractor drivers, ride-hailing giant Uber is not interested in getting into the insurance business itself. Rather, the global transportation firm is content to focus on being an “intelligent purchaser” of insurance, continuing to work with insurance carriers and brokers on any insurance for its drivers. “No, to be honest, we’re trying to get out of the insurance business,” Curtis Scott, global head of insurance for Uber, said. “I can tell you that Uber doesn’t have a desire to. We are good at being a tech company that’s in logistics and we want to do that. That’s what we’re strong at,” he said. “Insurance companies are good at being insurance companies and that’s hard to do,” he added.

인공지능과 로보트가 사람의 일자리를 뺏을 거라는 걱정이 많습니다. 그런데 인도사람은 59%, 나이지리아 사람은 65%로 높은 수치인데 반해 영국인은 25%만 이것을 걱정하네요. 선진국과 후진국의 산업구조를 보고 당장 기계가 대체할 일자리가 뭔지 보면 당연한 현상이겠죠!

Streetbees라는 회사가 영국인 800명을 포함해서 전세계 3,400명을 대상으로 조사했다고 하네요.

출처 : http://www.theactuary.com/news/2018/06/majority-of-brits-fear-the-impact-of-automation/

Automation fears ©iStock

That is according to new research by Streetbees, which finds that a quarter of Brits already believe their jobs could be done by robots today, with roles in manufacturing and finance thought to be most at risk.

To combat this, two-thirds believe there should be rules in place to stop companies replacing staff with machines, with just 15% of the adults studied disagreeing.

“Technology is disrupting the economy and society from top to bottom, and our research shows that people in the UK recognise its potential to completely change how we live and work,” Streetbees CEO, Tugce Bulut, said.

“Clearly, many British people aren’t sure what technological progress means – not just when it comes to their own jobs and futures, but also for the country as a whole.”

The research involved gathering the views of over 3,400 people worldwide, including more than 800 adults in the UK.

When asked what jobs machines will do better than humans in the next 20 years, Brits were most likely to say data processing, followed by data collection and manufacturing.

However, respondents in developing countries were even more concerned about the impact of technology, with 83% of Indians worried machines will take jobs from people, compared with 67% of Brits.

It was also found that 59% of Indians and 65% of Nigerians believe they could loose their job to a machine today, compared to a quarter of British people.

This comes after a report from the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) found that jobs in the finance and accounting sector may be some of the most under threat by automation.

It states that new technology could put people out of work and push down wages, but also boost productivity, phase out mundane work, and improve living standards.

“Whether or not artificial intelligence and robotics helps or hinders workers will come down to the choices we make as employers, policymakers, consumers, investors and the wider public,” the report adds.