This Week’s Most Read AI Stories: ChatGPT’s Stock Picks Beat the S&P 500

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1. ChatGPT-picked Stocks Beat S&P 500, Top UK Mutual Funds

A basket of 38 stocks chosen by ChatGPT has outperformed the S&P 500 and the top 10 mutual funds in the U.K., according to financial comparison site Finder.com.

From March 6 to Aug. 18, the ChatGPT ‘fund’ of stocks rose by 9.4% while the composite of 10 mutual funds, equally weighted, is up 1.67%.

ChatGPT also beat the S&P 500 Index, the U.S. benchmark by which many funds are assessed: It was up 7.9% over the same period.

ChatGPT's basket of stocks includes several recent highfliers, such as chip giant Nvidia which joined the trillion-dollar valuation club in May. It also includes Microsoft and Alphabet, whose shares have been on a tear since rolling out generative AI products and services earlier this year.

The criteria given to ChatGPT to screen the stocks were taken from those used by the 10 mutual funds and include low debt loads, past sustained growth and assets that give it a competitive advantage, according to Finder.com.

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2. Former IBM AI Chief: 3 Fundamental Gen AI Areas of Focus

Seth Dobrin, the former global chief AI officer at IBM, spoke with AI Business about fundamental issues with enterprises' implementations of generative AI.

Dobrin, who last spoke with AI Business in December, navigated the ever-changing landscape of AI and examined whether leading names in AI like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are the right people to lead the charge and influence AI legislation.

Dobrin shared three fundamental issues he believes enterprises should focus on with generative AI – including regulatory concerns and contextual understanding.

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3. Mastercard: Using AI to Spot Micro Trends for Effective Customer Engagement

Raja Rajamannar, chief marketing and communications officer at Mastercard, writes about how the company uses AI/ML to spot micro trends the world over to enhance customer engagement.

Noting that consumers are bombarded with ads, Mastercard developed an AI engine to cut through the noise and give consumers what they want, when they want it. Its engine does that by scouring billions of conversations online to spot micro trends, then matches the trend with a Mastercard offer or experience in real time.

In one case, the engine doubled the engagement rate, had 254% higher click through rates and 85% lower cost per click.

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4. Ex-Google CEO to Form Research Lab Patterned After OpenAI

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt reportedly is creating a nonprofit research lab patterned after OpenAI that will be tasked with solving the biggest challenges in science.

According to Semafor, the nonprofit will bring together under one roof notable AI researchers and scientists, so both can collaborate and leverage each other’s skills to accomplish “moonshot” goals.

Schmidt has already hired two accomplished scientists: Samuel Rodrigues, an MIT Physics Ph.D. and founder of the Applied Biotechnology Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute, and Andrew White, a pioneer in the use of AI in chemistry and professor at the University of Rochester.

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5. Court Upholds Ban on AI Artwork Copyright

A federal judge upheld a decision by the U.S. Copyright Office to refuse copyright protection to AI-generated art.

Judge Beryl A. Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that human authorship “is an essential part of a valid copyright claim.”

Plaintiff Stephan Thaler sought copyright protection for an AI-generated image that was made using the Creativity Machine, an artificial neural network-based system he created. His attempts were denied by the Copyright Office, which refused the application as it “lacked human authorship.”

But Judge Howell sided with the copyright office, ruling that U.S. copyright law protects “only works of human creation.”

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