When it comes to gender parity in financial services, Israel, where three of the nation's leading banks are run by women, is doing a better job than the US. That's one takeaway from a post penned by Bank Leumi's Rakefet Russak-Aminoach, which borrows inspiration from actress Gal Gadot. To be sure, there are plenty of Wonder Women today who could and should serve in leadership roles at US financial firms. But rather than focus just on today's sorry state, perhaps another way to promote greater gender diversity is to look at where financial services is going. As the great article furnished to us by Sultan Meghji shows (See below), Deep Learning specialists are in huge demand by Big Tech.

In explaining his rationale for deposing CEO Adam Nash and reinserting himself in the top spot, Wealthfront co-founder Andy Rachleff put his faith in artificial intelligence over people: "We understand that many older investors who meet the high minimums of the traditional industry will continue to find more comfort in a personal relationship with a traditional advisor and we respect that." Rachleff went on to explain that his company is building an AI-powered offering for a new generation of investors who supposedly won't ever need a human touch. We respect Rachleff and Wealthfront, but disagree fully with this view. We could cite growing competition from deep-pocketed incumbents, but that's not our main objection. Our view is that bionic advice -- where human skill is augmented with technology -- is the future of the advisory business.

Welcome to our 11th addition of The FR. This week, we discuss the coming of the robots to financial services and the Bitcoin civil war. We also take a look at "stack fallacy," Max Levchin's Affirm, IEX, Cornell's tech-infused MBA and the little digital bank on the prairie. Is Wall Street destined for Planet of the Robos? According to George Mason University's Robin D. Hanson, it's not a question of if but when the jobs of highly skilled, specialized workers are automated, since computers eventually will have the "mental powers" to do everything humans now do and more (See here).

Artificial intelligence might be coming to asset management faster than you think. Also this week, we discuss marketplace lending, AirBnb as a "credit bureau," an electricity trade via the blockchain and one start-up's approach to selling data to Wall Street. "Eventually the time will come that no human investment manager will be able to beat the computer." These words were uttered last year by David Siegel, co-head of Two Sigma Investments, the 30 billion quant fund that returned 15% in its two flagship vehicles last year. This week, we were reminded of Siegel's prediction upon meeting with a technologist who was still mesmerized by AlphaGo, Google's artificial intelligence Go program that handily defeated Go master, Lee Sedol, last month.