A lawsuit in London could set precedents for how to allocate responsibility when algorithms make poor predictions.
What’s happening: Samathur Li Kin-kan, a Hong Kong real-estate heir, sued high-profile hedge fund manager Raffaele Costa for $23 million for allegedly overstating the capabilities of an AI-driven trading platform. It’s the first known legal action over a financial loss caused by a predictive algorithm, according to Bloomberg.
Behind the news: Li in late 2017 invested $2.5 billion with Costa’s trading firm. Costa, who also goes by the name of Captain Magic, used a computer called K1 to recommend trades. Developed by Austrian software house 42.cx, the K1 system performed real-time sentiment analysis on news and social media to predict stock prices. Then it sent instructions to a broker to execute trades. Following a series of mishaps, the system lost $20.5 million in a single day in February 2018. Costa, in a countersuit for $3 million in unpaid fees, says he didn't guarantee a return on investment. Li's case is scheduled to go to trial in April 2020.
Why it matters: The question of who’s at fault when people act on erroneous predictions made by AI becomes more pressing as the technology finds its way into industries from healthcare to manufacturing. Reports of autonomous vehicle crashes and bias in law-enforcement software have made headlines, and such cases likely will become more common—and more contentious—in the future.
What they’re saying: “I think we did a pretty decent job. I know I can detect sentiment. I’m not a trader.” — 42.cx founder Daniel Mattes, quoted by Bloomberg.
Smart take: The outcome is bound to influence subsequent lawsuits involving AI — but it’s just the first step on a long, long road to establishing the legal status of AI.