Indeed, enthusiasm about AI has become the one ray of light piercing the stock market gloom created by the record-breaking rise in U.S. interest rates. It’s a good moment for investors to be especially alert to the tendency of natural stupidity to drive stock market valuations to unrealistic – and therefore ultimately unprofitable – extremes. However, the most important lessons of behavioural economics relate to a more fundamental question: Will the new generation of AI do what it promises? Behavioural economics offers some cautionary tales for such attempts to apply AI in the wild. For example, stock market returns can be affected by a small number of rare but extreme movements in share prices.

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