Just months after calling artificial intelligence “garbage,” Citadel CEO Ken Griffin is now warning that the technology will fundamentally reshape society—and says he went home “depressed” after seeing what it could actually do.
Griffin, the hedge fund billionaire who manages one of the world’s most powerful trading firms, had long been one of the most prominent skeptics of AI in finance. As recently as January 22 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he told a panel that while AI might look impressive on the surface, the moment you dug beneath it, “it’s all garbage.”
The reversal came fast—and, by Griffin’s own account, hit hard.
What changed his mind
Earlier this month, in a conversation at Stanford Business School, Griffin described a jarring personal reckoning. “I’ve got to tell you, I went home one Friday, actually fairly depressed,” he said. “You could just see how this was going to have such a dramatic impact on society.”
