In February, Bloomberg reported that Ray Dalio's Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund with $160 billion in assets, was building a new artificial intelligence team under senior technologist Dave Ferucci. It was to launch this month.
The report seemed to offer even a small glimpse into Bridgewater's mysterious investment approach and where it was heading.
However, a Bridgewater representative tells Business Insider that the hiring of Ferucci was misconstrued. Bridgewater has been developing AI since 1983.
Here's the full statement:
There has been a lot of speculation in the media, as well as some misunderstanding, about what Bridgewater is doing in the area of artificial intelligence, and with Dave Ferrucci. We felt it was important to clarify this.
Ever since 1983 Bridgewater Associates has been creating systematic decision-making processes that are computerized. We believe that the same things happen over and over again because of logical cause/effect relationships, and that by writing one’s principles down and then computerizing them one can have the computer make high-quality decisions in much the same way a GPS can be an effective guide to decision making.
Like using a GPS, one can choose to follow the guidance or not follow it depending on how it reconciles. It is through this never ending reconciliation process that the computer decision-making system constantly learns, and the learning compounds over time.
It is because Bridgewater and Dave Ferrucci both have long and deep commitments to this area that Dave has recently joined Bridgewater. It would be a mistake to think that this is a new undertaking for Bridgewater or that the process being used at Bridgewater is like some artificial intelligence systems that are based on data-mining rather than well-examined logic.
