Will artificial intelligence one day threaten the advisory industry?

No my dear, dear financial advisers, I'm not dreaming about an avatar to replace you. One day, though, there will be something that can interact with clients in the form of a computer that knows a good bit about the business. But let's keep things positive and consider that thing as some sort of virtual assistant to you the thinking, planning mammal. In the meantime, I'll tell you about things like Sophie as I come across them, err, her (there I go anthropomorphizing again). The Science Times, a weekly supplement that comes out on Tuesdays in the New York Times, had a good story this week on some of the latest in semantic learning and the quest by researchers to create artificial intelligence using computers. Seems even one of the most intriguing and promising systems to date can still get flummoxed by things like Internet cookies and mistakenly categorizing them as a baked good. The story is a good read. Here's a link, though you will probably have to register as an online reader of the Times — at least until their pay wall goes up: “Aiming to Learn as We Do, A Machine Teaches Itself” Related stories: Virtual adviser to the mass affluent gets a little more sophisticated A solution for financial advisers who are tired of client data entry Dust off your younger, slimmer avatar — virtual conferences are catching on among advisers