Bridgewater Chief Executive Nir BarDea said a fund the company launched last year that uses machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) for decision-making has achieved performance comparable to the company's human-managed strategies. BarDea told the Bloomberg Investment Conference in New York on Tuesday that the $2 billion fund, which Bridgewater launched last year, has generated "unique alpha that is uncorrelated to what we humans do" since its inception, but he did not disclose the fund's specific returns to date.
NirBarDea
BarDea said that while he believed it was futile to try to predict what impact AI would have on society, the technology had huge investment potential and he urged anyone interested to "get their hands dirty" and try it out.
In launching the AI fund, the hedge fund told investors it relied on proprietary technology it has been building for more than a decade. It was part of a project led by co-chief investment officer Greg Jensen and was expected to eventually incorporate models developed by companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity.
BarDea said AI will also impact hiring, with companies increasingly looking to hire people who can do things machines can't, rather than focusing on commoditized skills.
"We've been exploring how technology can replace what humans are doing so that humans can do things that technology can't do," BarDea said. "For 50 years we've been adapting the type of talent that Bridgewater brings in. That means going from looking for people with analytical skills and financial backgrounds to looking for people who conceptualize and can ask philosophical questions."