Last week, US tech giant Microsoft released a list of jobs likely to be swept aside in the upcoming artificial intelligence storm along with a corresponding list of occupations deemed relatively resilient to the impending onslaught.
While it makes for depressing reading, the list is notable for at least one stark omission.
Despite mass sackings last year, software developers and software coding specialists are surprisingly absent, although they’re certainly not in the column for those likely to be spared, which features professions such as dredge operators, pile driver operators and bridge tenders.
The past few weeks have seen a stark reassessment of the impact of AI on the very sector that has created it and, in particular, on the companies that specialise in software.
Microsoft shares have tanked, off more than 16 per cent, despite releasing relatively strong earnings results, and the entire US technology sector — which has driven Wall Street and global stock markets for the past three years — is suddenly lagging the field.
In a world increasingly concerned about bloated stock market valuations, investors have now begun to question whether they’ll ever see a return on the stupendous amount of cash that’s being thrown at AI.
The uncertainty has led to a series of violent swings on Wall Street and even infected markets such as Australia, which has only a modest exposure to technology, along with precious metals like gold and silver.
Thursday’s plunge suddenly reversed Friday, which was repeated here yesterday.
It’s also spilled over into Bitcoin, which, apart from facing its own long-term reckoning from the threat of quantum computing, is rapidly degenerating into nothing more than a gambling instrument.
Bitcoin has halved in value from its October peak, capped last week by a series of wild, largely inexplicable price gyrations that have smashed any notion that it can be relied upon as a store of wealth.
The result is a heady mix of extreme volatility on multiple fronts, a worrying trend that could trigger a reassessment of risk and a sizeable stock market correction.
Software as a sinkhole
Almost everyone blames Claude.
In the past few weeks, the AI platform known as Claude and owned by Anthropic has sent real intelligence into a spin.
Amongst investors, the penny has finally dropped about just what the future may hold. And many are backing off or at least rethinking their strategy.
AI may revolutionise the way we live and work. But it could very well lay waste to business empires that themselves only recently overthrew the old analogue world order.
Software, the products that have created vast business empires in the past four decades and employed legions of code-writing geeks, can now be written in an instant by AI.
The implications are huge. Not only does AI open the door to competition, undermining the tech giants’ margins, the very same AI programs can now be utilised by ordinary people, with the potential to threaten their existence.
Atlassian has already begun to feel the heat. A year ago, its shares were changing hands at $US322 apiece. They’re now below $US95, a drop of more than 70 per cent. Founder Mike Cannon-Brookes has reportedly seen his fortune shrink by $19 billion as a result.
Amazon last week announced another 16,000 lay-offs, following the 14,000 it shed last year, while Microsoft sacked 15,000 workers last year.
But if investors are concerned, the message has yet to flow through to the tech giants’ boardrooms, where there has been no sign of any let-up in the race towards AI domination.
Having already thrown so much down on its development, they are doubling down with pledges so far to spend upwards of another $US650 billion this year.
One or two may emerge victorious. Several could crumble.
Your super is betting large on AI
The growing alarm amongst investors still hasn’t really sunk in.
Last Friday night, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, a collection of 30 prominent American companies spanning the US economic landscape, hit a record high, passing through 50,000 for the first time.
The technology-heavy Nasdaq exchange bounced back too, after a week of violent swings.
But it is now starting to lag the performance of old-fashioned industrials and financials, with the share prices of both Meta and Amazon lower than when Donald Trump came to power a year ago. Only Google’s parent Alphabet is ahead on market valuations.
This is likely to have a big impact here in Australia.
Like many big investors, Australia’s superannuation funds flocked to the US to capitalise on the AI boom.
But as the graph above shows, that strategy has begun to unravel. Once the engine room of American financial and technological superiority, the so-called Magnificent 7 tech giants have run out of puff.
It wasn’t just an idle side bet by our super funds either. Because they were hugely over-exposed to Australian stocks, they’ve plunged headfirst into the Wall Street boom, which helped drive spectacular returns during the past three years.
Now, they’re faced with double trouble. Not only is the tech bet looking stretched, a stronger Australian dollar, which has appreciated almost 10 per cent since late last year, has begun weighing on returns.
Bitcoin’s bit part could turn ugly
For a market in such disarray, no-one can quite pinpoint the problem.
Bitcoin, having plunged late last year from its $US127,000 October peak, was languishing in the mid $US90,000 range into the new year.
Suddenly, it tanked, plunging to just above $US60,000 before recovering to $US70,000.
The November crash was blamed on a couple of big owners being forced to liquidate their positions to cover debts. This time around, there seems to be no answer.
A huge amount, $US1.25 billion worth of coins, was liquidated last Thursday night.
Some blamed hedging activity from BlackRock, which runs the biggest bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund. Others claimed investors who had borrowed to finance their bitcoin purchases were being forced to sell.
But no-one really knows.
It is more likely that it has suddenly dawned on owners that there’s nothing in the tank when it comes to fuel to further fire up the price.
Donald Trump’s crypto-friendly regulatory approach and his pardoning of self-confessed criminals like Binance’s Changpeng Zhao have run their course.
Its reputation as a store of wealth is now shredded, its use as a currency, at least for legitimate purposes, has evaporated and the rise of quantum computing threatens the security of its encrypted blockchain technology.
But it now occupies a legitimate place in investment portfolios, albeit a highly speculative and volatile one. And that’s a concern.
Should it plunge to $US10,000 a coin — as some suggested last week as exchange traded funds offloaded stock — it would open a new avenue for contagion in already overstretched global equity markets.
Read more on Australian Broadcasting Corporation
