Big Data, Machine Learning/AI, and Digital Money: How are they Changing Everything?

How are Machine Learning and AI transforming our economy? Who owns your personal data, or “digital exhaust?” Should we embrace these new capabilities or fear them? Can machines learn finance?  Will the central banks lose control of money to private digital money, or will they create and control digital money? How will the current payments systems and institutions change? Join the Global Interdependence Center on February 3, 2020 in La Jolla, California as industry and central bank expert panels answer these questions and Raphael Bostic, the President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, gives the keynote speech. GIC is delighted to once again work with the University of California, San Diego Rady School of Management to bring our programming to the West Coast.

Continuing Education: Attendees of this conference can receive continuing education credit from the Certified Financial Planner Board for 3 credit hours. Please email Colleen at cmurphy@interdependence.org for more details.

Agenda

9:00 a.m. | Registration

9:15 a.m. | Welcome

• Michael Melvin, Executive Director, Master of Finance Program and Pacific Center for Asset Management, UCSD
• Stephen Sexauer, Chief Investment Officer, The San Diego County Employees Retirement Association
  

9:30 a.m. | Big Data, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence: Embrace Them or Fear Them?
Moderator: Don Rissmiller, Chief Economist, Strategas Research Partners and GIC Chair Emeritus

• Almost all aspects of our lives and environment are digitized and captured by a sensor, camera, or algorithm. Will this data and artificial intelligence make our lives better, safer, and healthier? Should we fear robots, job-replacing algorithms, and a surveillance economy? How do we control all this?
  Speaker: Preston McAfee, Former Corporate Vice President and Chief Economist, Microsoft Corporation
• How does your body’s internal data generate a digital twin? The coming game changer for medicine and wellness. How can a network of sensors help us monitor and manage natural disasters, like the recent California fires?
  Speaker: Larry Smarr, Professor, UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering and founding Director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2)
• China 2025: China’s race to be the world leader in AI. Who’s ahead? Who wins? Does it matter?
  Speaker: Leland Miller, Chief Executive Officer, China Beige Book International
  

11:00 a.m. | Can Machines Learn Finance? Will “Algos” Replace People? Evolution or Revolution?
Moderator: Professor Michael Melvin, Executive Director, Master of Finance Program and Pacific Center for Asset Management, UCSD

• Machine learning—what’s new, what’s centuries old. Will machine learning algorithms change how markets work?
  Speaker: Bryan Kelly, PhD, Professor of Finance at Yale and Head of Machine Learning at AQR
• Practical limits to big data, machine learning, and AI in managing portfolios
  Speaker: Michael Heldmann, PhD, Managing Director, Allianz Global Investors
• Using alternative data and machine learning to forecast returns in active portfolio management
  Speaker: Ronald Kahn, PhD and Global Head of Scientific Equity Research, Blackrock
  

12:30 p.m. | Lunch

1:30 p.m. | Keynote Presentation

• Raphael Bostic, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
  Followed by a Q&A with Stephen Sexauer, Chief Investment Officer, The San Diego County Employees Retirement Association

2:30 p.m. | Central Banks and the Rise of Private Digital Money
Moderator: Dave Altig, Executive Vice President and Director of Research, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

• Digital money and crypto currencies: Are they money? Securities? ETFs? Funds? Transaction platforms?
  Speaker: Dave Nadig, CIO & Director of Research, ETF Trends & ETF Database
• When central bank-issued money competes with private-issued money, what happens?
  Speaker: Scott Hendry, Senior Special Director, Financial Technology, Bank of Canada
• Private digital money: Stable Coin
  Speaker: Warren Weber, Retired Senior Research Officer, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis & Visiting Scholar, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
• Money, stablecoins, and anonymity. Private and central bank digital currency. Monetary policy in a world of digital money and five billion internet users.
  Speaker: Jamie McAndrews, CEO of TNB USA Inc. & Fellow of Wharton Financial Institutions Center. Former Research Director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York

4:00 p.m. | A Summary of the Day: Key takeaways and Questions

• Preston McAfee, Former Corporate Vice President and Chief Economist, Microsoft Corporation
• Dave Altig, Executive Vice President and Director of Research, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

4:30 p.m. | Adjournment