The founder of Bridgewater Associates discusses decision-making in the AI era: principled thinking should run parallel with AI, and human insights remain irreplaceable

Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, recently published a lengthy article sharing his thoughts on the investment decision-making system in the AI era, emphasizing that human insights still hold irreplaceable value in financial markets.

Dalio believes that investing is essentially a "value-added near-zero-sum" competitive environment. When certain information becomes widely recognized, its investment value often declines rapidly. Therefore, even the most advanced AI systems are insufficient for investors to rely on completely or to follow blindly; the true competitive advantage still lies in unique human understanding and deep insights.

Drawing on Bridgewater's 50 years of development experience, Dalio suggests that decision-making should be based on a clear, understandable, and verifiable principle system. He states that principled thinking does not rely on intuition or experiential judgment, but rather systematizes decision-making standards by analyzing contexts and causal relationships, recording core principles, and utilizing historical data for verification, ultimately transforming them into computable and automatically executable decision systems.

He also points out that the formation of principles cannot solely depend on data mining or directly asking AI, but must be based on logical reasoning and an understanding of the operational laws of the real world.

Dalio describes this process as a "collaborative game" between humans and AI. In this model, AI provides systematic suggestions based on established principles, while humans engage in independent thinking according to their own principle framework. Both parties continuously optimize the decision-making system through comparison, discussion, and logical verification.

He believes that truly valuable principles should transcend time and geography, enduring scrutiny across different historical cycles and market environments. If a principle fails, it is necessary to re-examine the underlying causal relationships and continuously revise it.

Dalio states that he has already applied this method in his family office to fully leverage the new generation of AI technology and plans to continue sharing related methodologies with the outside world. He also reminds market participants that as AI technology continues to evolve, the ability to effectively combine artificial intelligence with principled thinking may become an important watershed for future competitiveness.