This is an excerpt from the CNBC Make It publication. Subscribe right here.
OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, debuted in November and has shortly turn into a viral sensation. And having seen its capabilities — producing cogent and inventive writing based mostly on consumer prompts — everybody from enterprise capital luminaries to my buddies on the bar appear to be saying the identical factor: that is about to place information staff like me out of a job.
Possibly it’s. In any case, Microsoft announced a multiyear, multi-billion dollar investment in OpenAI this week.
So for this week’s publication, I put the A.I. device to the check. I tasked it with writing a monetary weblog put up on tax-loss harvesting, a subject I selected for 2 causes:
- I not too long ago wrote a story on the subject.
- The principles behind the technique have not modified since 2021 — the final 12 months for which Chat GPT has up-to-date info.
Here is what it produced. Have in mind, ChatGPT warns you off the bat that it “may occasionally generate incorrect information” and “may produce harmful instructions or biased content.”
Tax-loss harvesting is a method that traders can use to offset beneficial properties of their portfolio by promoting investments which have decreased in worth. This is usually a helpful approach to scale back your tax invoice, because it means that you can declare the losses as deductions in your taxes. Nonetheless, there are some essential elements to contemplate earlier than deciding to pursue tax-loss harvesting.
One key consideration is whether or not or not the investments you need to promote are really losers. In the event that they nonetheless have potential to develop in worth, it could be finest to carry on to them somewhat than promoting them simply to assert a tax loss. Moreover, it is essential to contemplate the wash-sale rule, which states that should you promote a safety at a loss after which buy the identical safety inside 30 days, you can’t declare the loss in your taxes.
One other issue to contemplate is your total funding technique. Tax-loss harvesting could be helpful within the quick time period, but it surely shouldn’t be the driving issue behind your funding selections. It is essential to just be sure you are making selections based mostly in your long-term objectives and funding horizon.
In conclusion, tax-loss harvesting is usually a helpful technique for decreasing your tax invoice, but it surely’s essential to contemplate the potential penalties of promoting investments earlier than making any selections. Ensure that your funding technique aligns along with your long-term objectives and that you’re conscious of the wash-sale rule. It is at all times a good suggestion to seek the advice of a tax skilled or monetary advisor earlier than making any selections.
The impact is variety of wonderful, and type of uncanny, proper? The writing is considerably, ahem, robotic, however should you had by no means heard of tax-loss harvesting, that is admittedly an honest primer, and one which took the A.I. simply seconds to write down.
However whereas I would not name any of the bot’s evaluation “incorrect” per se, you’d want heaps of extra context to behave on it. You possibly can, as an example, deduct capital losses out of your tax invoice, however at first solely to the extent that they offset like-for-like capital beneficial properties. And whilst you do have to be conscious of the wash-sale rule should you promote a inventory, it is comparatively simple to skirt should you promote a fund.
I might say these particulars are usually not solely related, however important to readers, and I attempted to get ChatGPT to incorporate them. However the extra I requested the A.I. to flesh out these concepts in its article, the extra it started parroting the language I used to be placing within the prompts.
Whereas A.I. is usually a highly effective device, the particular person feeding it nonetheless has to know their stuff to get outcomes which might be really helpful to readers.
Do not simply take it from me. Here is what ChatGPT mentioned after I requested whether or not it was prone to take my job.
AI isn’t but superior sufficient to totally change human journalists relating to duties that require artistic pondering, important evaluation, and the flexibility to know and interpret advanced social and political points.
Could not have mentioned it higher myself.
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