Fact or fiction?

According to Al itself, the cons outweigh the pros when it comes to using it to manage your money.

- STORY HELEN BAKER

It’s one of the biggest topics of our time: artificial intelligence (AI). Touted as being a productivity and technological gamechanger, it has the capacity to influence, even reshape, virtually every aspect of our lives, including our relationship with money. I asked AI assistant Google Gemini 'What are the pros and cons of using yourself or another AI platform to manage money?'.

It promptly returned the following pros:

• automation and efficiency

• speed and data processing

• personalization (to a degree) - (note the US spelling)

• objectivity and reduced bias

• predictive analytics

• cost-effectiveness

• accessibility

• compliance

Interestingly, it outlined a larger number of risks (nine risks versus eight benefits):

• lack of human understanding and emotional intelligence

• limited contextual understanding

• 'black box' problem and lack of transparency

• reliance on data quality

• security and privacy risks

• over-reliance and lack of human oversight

• inability to handle complex or unique situations

• regulatory and ethical concerns

• technological limitations and obsolescence Let's explore these points in more detail, as well as examine other risks that AI itself may not even recognise as being present.

Data accuracy

AI is like a vacuum cleaner - it hoovers up information from all over the internet and then sifts through the material collected. However, the technology is only as reliable as the data available to it. There is no shortage of unreliable information online today, including: opinions presented as facts, political propaganda, marketing spin, deliberate misinformation and disinformation, scams, fraud and deepfakes, and outdated information.