Based on a sarcastic comment I made a little bit ago but kept thinking about.
For a long time now (before the current AI bubble, even), the majority of stocks traded have been performed by algorithms using machine learning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithmic_trading
Tech companies keep developing AI-powered solutions because it’s a quick way to earn money through stocks. The majority of profit in the stock market right now is coming from AI slop.
https://fortune.com/2025/10/07/ai-bubble-cisco-moment-dotcom-crash-nvidia-jensen-huang-top-analyst/
So, when the majority of stocks being traded are decided by AI, and it just happens that the most profitable investments are likewise boosting AI development, is this essentially AI using the mechanics of capitalism to self-select its own advancement?
Most algorithmic trading is not done by AI and won’t be at any time in the near future. Algo trading is primarily used for HFT (high frequency trading) and fundamental trading, both of which AI are terrible for. In the HFT world traders are fighting for fractions of microseconds, so AI is far too slow to be helpful. Trading on fundamentals also won’t work with AI because AI makes frequent (by trading standards) math errors
Things like gradient boosting, supervised + reinforcement learning, NLP (sentiment analysis), etc have been used in algorithmic trading for decades.
Hell, much to the chagrin of statisticians, some people even lump linear regression under the AI umbrella
Also I think you are confusing fundamentals and technicals