First post of the year and it's about everyone's favorite topic... artificial intelligence, here we go.
I think by now, we have all played around with ChatGPT or Bard and are sick of all the AI talk, correct?
Watching the highlights of last week's CES2024, literally every product presented (from coffee makers to cars) praised that product's revolutionary AI. Frankly, it's getting a bit out of hand. I don't require AI to make a f*cking coffee. However, there was one trend I saw which... could be good, could be bad. Anyways I researched it a bit, so here are a few thoughts but first... a backstory.
Back in 2005 or so when I was dumbass university student, I met an older gentlemen (ugh probably was about my current age) in one of my business classes. He went back to school because he lost his job and his savings during the dot-com bubble bust of the early 2000s. He was a software developer who lost out when all those tech start ups of that time failed, causing a crisis on the NASDAQ. Well due to zero interest rates that followed the 2008 financial crisis, tech came roaring back since then, and that guy is doing probably well right now... I hope. But this quick story shows that every field is cyclical, and even the most in demand work can become nearly obsolete due to technological advancements.
Why am I telling you this? Well one of the crazy trends I saw at CES, was the democratisation of AI. According to many execs sitting atop the tech world, the future of development is without code. Meaning, instead of learning difficult programming languages to develop apps and programs, one will simply talk to a prompt like its a human, and that AI will spit out the app framework. Sounds cool right? Sure, but not if you're a developer I'm thinking. In Eastern Europe (specifically here in Poland and Romania), developers/programmers are among the highest paying careers, how will their work change with this "no code" programming? Hmmmm....
Well as an investor, this should make us happy right? Firms will not have to pay huge salaries to programmers since it will be an easy skill to pick up (boosting their bottom lines).. and it might fuel a new wave of tech start ups and such. Because of this, simply investing in QQQ is the safest bet to have your capital increase due to the AI revolution.
But I have another AI play that's a bit more... low key. Some have found it weird that while major players such as OpenAI, Microsoft, Amazon and Google are already capitalizing on generative AI (or marketing that they are), Apple seems to be lagging far behind. I do not find this weird, AAPL is hardly a firm which invents something remarkable as of late, if anything they wait for somebody else to do it, then create a better version which everybody then wants to purchase. The last 3 AAPL key notes didn't even mention AI unlike the other tech giants. However, AAPL just recently made a pretty significant stride towards bringing generative AI to our iPhones and MacBooks. This could be a hit and catapult the share price forward once they finally reveal their AI in the near future, likely late 2024 or early 2025.
So, my AI strategy is to be bullish and keep buying QQQ, AAPL, and last but surely not least, my favorite future trillion dollar company, PLTR.
