Sean McKinven's Newsround: 14 September

Hello.

On Sunday morning I was presented with a machine. It was my Dad’s old portable typewriter. The ribbon still had some ink in it and, using his Master’s dissertation as a visual aid, he highlighted how all parts of the formatting had to be inputted manually.

The keys hammer, the skip button chugs, a lovely ding sounds when you reach where you set the margins. You use a silver handle to push it back to the end of the page and with a swish and a clunk, you are back at blank paper. The shift key lifts the whole keyboard, the courier typeset (which I can’t replicate here) leaves a lovely imprint which sits oh so nicely on paper.

It is interesting seeing how much of typing and formatting was rooted in this machine that is more than 40 years old. Yet we are now largely distanced from the mechanics for the simple reason we removed them. For good reasons too – but there is certainly something lost there.

Seemingly, the world’s premier mathematician Terrence Tao has sounded the alarm on the threat AI poses to the intellectual rigour of mathematics. Namely, Tao among others, has suggested breakthroughs in maths and science need the toil and the struggle to impart the learning. If AI can break down these problems without us understanding how, then we are just generating information, we cannot develop scientifically in the same way as previously.

Essentially, this came out of Open AI cracking one of the world’s most famous unsolved maths problems, possibly <allegedly> stealing other people’s work to do so. The high-level debate is important, but there is something more localised as AI use becomes more frequent that is worth interrogating.

To put it this way, the big, scary thing about 1984 is the big, scary government convincing you – or at least getting you to fall in line with the false conclusion that 2 + 2 = 5. But what if an equally scary thing that arises from AI is that 2 + 2 = 4, it’s just you lose the concept behind it. It’s just information presented to you, that you regurgitate somewhere else. A week on from falling rates of school performance across the world highlights this as a concern that can expand outwith maths.

The Economist says don’t worry about it, since Socrates admonished physical writing, folk had similar concerns about ballpoint pens and electronic calculators – you won’t be complaining when it’s curing cancer.

There is a lot to challenge here, including whether Open AI <allegedly> stealing mathematicians’ work to solve a previously unsolvable problem is the same as the invention of the ballpoint pen.

The obvious rebuttal is that AI is an enhancer, it does not have to be the driver, yadda yadda. But we must also consider what it is we might be losing.

Some stuff should be hard and the typewriter highlighted to me how quickly things can become abstracted from their original mechanics. It’s not hard to imagine there are workplaces where someone is in a doom loop of feeding AI information, getting it out, rearranging it, feeding it back and becoming increasingly distant from any of the work that is meant to be happening.

I will leave you with Kurt Vonnegut explaining to his wife why he is going out to buy a singular envelope. A tad romantic perhaps but a warning about what we could lose if we are not, ironically enough, more mindful.

Oh, she says well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is, is we’re here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals.”

The News:

LANG CAT & CLIENT MENTIONS

Ben Kumar: ‘This too shall pass’ – a simple motto for a tricky world

7IM gets philosophical.

Source: Money Marketing

Heart of Wealth: Advisers battle for Anthropic’s IPO billions

Dyer Baade analysis discussed here.

Source: Citywire WM

Aberdeen Adviser hits £1.15bn AUA with new SIPP proposition

Boost for Aberdeen.

Source: Money Marketing

Lang Cat’s Analyser tool adds Star data

Analyser partners with STAR.

Source: FT Adviser

Platform pain points advisers want to see solved

Morningstar on PATV.

Source: Professional Adviser

Majority of advisers want CGT reporting in platform tax packs

SOTAN mentioned in conjunction with FSL findings.

Source: Professional Adviser

Exclusive: Aviva to roll-out streamlined advice for sub-£500k clients

Ortec earns a mention.

Source: Citywire NMA

Andrew Tully: Yet more complexity in the savings landscape

Andrew Tully of Nucleus sets his sights on ISA complexity.

Source: Money Marketing

ADVISERS

Six in ten advisers are considering simplified advice

Most prevalent among those with long-term growth ambitions.

Source: Money Marketing

At the Helm: Expanding into Europe post-Brexit

One adviser shares how he has looked into getting back to advising in Europe after he had stepped back after Brexit.

Source: Money Marketing

Paraplanners will become more specialist due to AI

According to Verve COO Jo Campbell.

Source: FT Adviser

How I fought my financial adviser in court — and won back my money

A lot of ‘that wasn’t very Consumer Duty of them’ moments in this one.

Source: The Times

PLATFORMS

Standard Life to expand its advice service to IHT

Presumably ahead of the big changes. Are there big changes coming to IHT? Nobody ever mentions this.

Source: Citywire NMA

INVESTMENT & WEALTH MANAGERS

VCT market expected to shrink in response to tax relief changes

Venture Capital Trust Albion VC has opened a top-up offer but it has been brought forward this year in response to government changes to the VCT scheme.

Source: FT Adviser

The finfluencer effect? Vanguard ETF hauls $1.4bn in three weeks

In this case a sensible product, but goes to show the influence that some of these people have.

Source: Citywire NMA

FCA: too many do not understand ‘benefits and opportunities’ of investing

Quick – where is that squirrel?

Source: FT Adviser

WealthAi launches AI tool for advisers

Loving the creative name guys.

Source: FT Adviser

Could the FCA authorise an AI tool to provide advice by 2030?

One for McKinven’s law of headlines.