CNBC reports a mystery algorithm was responsible for 4% of U.S. quote stock market quote traffic last week!
Don’t worry – it’s not like some mystery computer just accumulated 4% of U.S. companies, and will now act as an activist investor and demand more computers on the board of directors of your favorite company, Build-A-Bear Workshop. (You do have unusual taste in favorite companies.)
That’s because the computer was essentially a tease! The program offered to buy stocks, and then before anyone could sell, it immediately withdrew its offers. All week long. Possibly for nefarious purposes like allowing high frequency traders to make decisions that help them profit while real investors were distracted with fake offers.
3 Worse Things Computers Could Order And Then Walk Away Seconds Later Without Paying
1. A new home! Once ordered, these things take months to build. And it’s bad enough complex derivative math geniuses crashed world financial markets in 2008 – do we really need algorithms actually participating in the housing market? All we know is that if the new construction in your neighborhood starts looking like Super Mario Land, start being really suspicious as to whether actual humans are moving in next door.
2. The Nokia Lumia-Whatever-It’s-Called. Just like when bullies elect a homecoming Queen as a joke, it sure would be a mean prank on the people of Finland if other smart phone operating systems placed orders pretending that someone actually wants millions of these phones. p.s. Hey, Nokia, if you want customers to remember your phone name, how about starting naming them with smaller numbers than 900. We might suggest 3, 4, or 5! Those numbers seem to be working for Samsung and Apple.
3. A 102 ounce steak at a Texan restaurant that gives away the steak for free if you eat it in 60 minutes. Have some respect, computers! That’s gonna come out of your waiter’s salary! But in fairness to the computer, it could have used one of those new 3D printers to make its own barbecue, steak, payment, server, and fixins’. So you should keep up on your technology, waitstaff! Because the next computer that walks in ordering steak could secretly print out a replica, fully functional copy of you, and create all kinds of havoc, ranging from giving bad service to your customers, to giving too much service to the next drunk customer, who the 3D copy of you will ask to marry during your shift.
