ROBOTS can make more cash than people when they trade commodities, according to Jeffrey Kephart at IBM's research centre in Hawthorne, New York.
Kephart says his team's findings could have a much greater impact than the famous victory of IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer over chess supremo Gary Kasparov. "The impact might be measured in billions of dollars annually," he says.
A commodities trader buys and sells goods, which are usually agricultural or mineral-based, like pork bellies or gold. Their aim is to buy low and sell high. While robotic trading agents have been entered in competitions before, they had never competed against people.
In IBM's test, software-based robotic trading agentsknown as "bots"made seven per cent more cash than people. Both bots and people had the same set-up, allowing them to trade through an unbiased software-based auctioneer. The auction was designed to mimic the kind of commodities market where buyers and ...
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