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Just months after calling artificial intelligence \u201cgarbage,\u201d\u00a0Citadel\u00a0CEO Ken Griffin is now warning that the technology will fundamentally reshape society\u2014and says he went home \u201cdepressed\u201d after seeing what it could actually do.<\/p>\n
Griffin, the hedge fund billionaire who manages one of the world\u2019s most powerful trading firms, had long been one of the most prominent skeptics of AI in finance. As recently as January 22 at the\u00a0World Economic Forum in Davos, he told a panel that while AI might look impressive on the surface, the moment you dug beneath it, \u201cit\u2019s all garbage.\u201d<\/p>\n
The reversal came fast\u2014and, by Griffin\u2019s own account, hit hard.<\/p>\n
What changed his mind<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, in a\u00a0conversation at Stanford Business School, Griffin described a jarring personal reckoning. \u201cI\u2019ve got to tell you, I went home one Friday, actually fairly depressed,\u201d he said. \u201cYou could just see how this was going to have such a dramatic impact on society.\u201d<\/p>\n
The catalyst was watching what AI was actually doing inside Citadel. Griffin said the technology had become \u201cprofoundly more powerful\u201d than it was just months ago, enabling the firm to \u201cunleash\u201d a broader range of use cases it hadn\u2019t previously been able to pursue. <\/p>\n
The Stanford remarks came shortly after Griffin spoke at\u00a0Milken Institute\u2019s Global Conference, where he described asking CEOs to share how they were using AI to transform their businesses\u2014and said he received \u201csix or seven extraordinary stories\u201d in response.<\/p>\n
The finance jobs reckoning<\/p>\n
For Griffin, the most striking proof isn\u2019t in coding or content\u2014it\u2019s in high-end financial research. Work that Citadel would previously have assigned to teams with master\u2019s degrees and PhDs in finance, work that took weeks or months, is now being completed by AI agents in hours or days.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be blunt, work that we would usually do with people with master\u2019s and PhDs in finance over the course of weeks or months is being done by AI agents over the course of hours or days,\u201d Griffin said at Stanford.<\/p>\n
He drew a distinction between the more modest productivity gains AI has delivered in software engineering\u2014where he pegged improvements at 15% to 25%\u2014and the far more disruptive shift happening in knowledge work and research. \u201cWhen you\u2019re seeing really high-level research being done by AI engines, it\u2019s quite eye-opening,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Griffin\u2019s reversal is particularly notable given how recently he was pushing back on Wall Street\u2019s AI boosterism. At Davos in January, he warned that the prediction that 50% of entry-level jobs would disappear within five years was \u201chype pushed to justify data center spending,\u201d\u00a0LinkedIn commentary\u00a0on his remarks. He also noted that U.S. data center spending could top $500 billion this year, suggesting the investment narrative was outpacing real-world results. This is when he made the remarks that AI seemed to be \u201cgarbage\u201d under the surface. What a change a few months make. <\/p>\n
The broader warning<\/p>\n
Griffin is now pointing to something further up the skills ladder\u2014the automation of work once thought safe behind the wall of advanced degrees and specialized expertise. His message to workers is both urgent and pointed: adaptability is now the only durable edge.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe success in your career will be defined as to whether or not you will be a lifelong learner or not,\u201d Griffin said at Stanford, \u201cand AI will just make this all the more important.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an open question whether the audience of young adults will be receptive to Griffin\u2019s remarks. Nearly simultaneous with Griffin\u2019s change of heart, commencement speakers have been getting booed by Gen Z audiences, seemingly whenever they mention the benefits of AI.<\/p>\n
For this story,\u00a0Fortune\u00a0journalists used generative AI as a research tool. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.<\/p>\n
#Ken #Griffin #dismiss #garbage #Heres #changed #mindand #hes #depressed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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