The Era of Vibe Investing?

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/745b8b_b71a622b498d42a4adc7d8184599290c/360p/mp4/file.mp4

The man who looks like a homeless person in the video is Rick Rubin, a nine-time Grammy Award-winning music producer who doesn't play any instruments.

“I have no technical ability”

“So what are you being paid for?”

“The confidence that I have in my taste and my ability to express what I feel”

This hilarious video, when viewed again in 2030, might seem incredibly real.

In just two days, I used Claude's CoWork to "write" several thousand lines of code in human language, implementing functions such as automatic updates of some of Bedrock's internal models and databases, anomaly detection, and attribution of company performance below/above expectations (six months ago, I thought AI would need 2-3 years to achieve this function).

The efficiency of communication between human language and the 0/1 digital world is experiencing an order-of-magnitude increase. Coding, as a technical skill, or the "dirty work," is rapidly being commodified to the point of being priced like a token. If programmers don't want to be replaced, the first step is to significantly improve their work efficiency through AI tools; the second step is to upgrade to product manager. For the lack of better communication skills, they need "confidence that they have in their taste and ability to express what they feel."

The impact of AI on the subjective investment research industry is inevitable. Just as the pure PB < 1 approach of picking up cigarette butts became ineffective after the digitization and popularization of company financial information, many investment methods may become obsolete in this new era, and we can already feel the changes.

For example, we can clearly feel that the market price discovery/proof/falsification cycle is accelerating: the transparency and speed of information dissemination have increased once again. This is mainly due to the increasing number of ways to monetize information (such as turning expert calls into public accounts and becoming information distributors, and the emergence of the explosive new information market of prediction, etc.), and the fact that AI tools can greatly improve the speed of search and information absorption.

When I first used the term "Vibe Investing," I was strongly opposed to it: I vehemently oppose outsourcing my thinking, currently only using AI as an advanced search tool, and completely distrusting its insights. However, another part of me tells me I also need to be aware of the potential crisis. Like "vibe coding," this term reflects a serious reality I must face: as a researcher with three years of experience, some of my "technical abilities," such as the ability to search, understand, summarize, and filter information, and the ability to build and track financial models based on information, are rapidly being commodified into token prices. Similarly, my first step is to significantly improve my work efficiency through AI tools, and the second step is to quickly upgrade to a PM's mindset.

When AI can do all the basic work in investing, if someone asks me...

“so what are you being paid for?” 

My current answer might be:

“The confidence that we have in our investment framework, and our ability to express insights into investment ideas”