AI Trader 'Sets and Forgets'

Wall Street's use of artificial intelligence passed a milestone earlier this month as the San Francisco-based hedge fund Tech Trader completed 12 months of trading without human interaction, according to fund founder William Mok. "In the last couple of months, we have reached a point where we can self-sustain," said Mok. "We finally made it to an escape velocity where if we do not put in more effort, we are not going to sink back down." Although Tech Trader leaves its decisions up to the AI, it also has automated as much of the investment lifecycle as possible and outsources much of its middle and back office to third parties. "You can point at anything and say that it's not 100% machine," he said "Maybe it's 99% machine. But in practice now, we've been living it for a year and have not had to do anything to it that is related to trading." The fund, which has $20 million of assets under management, trades US equities and exchange traded funds that have a market capitalization of at least $1 billion.