My kid’s teacher pulled me up at school drop-off this week.
“What’s he done now?” I asked, bracing myself.
Turns out I was the one in trouble.
“I saw you on the internet advising people to sell everything because of the budget,” she said.
I’m not even on social media. But there are hundreds of AI-generated posts claiming I am, complete with photos of me looking like a washed-up Blue Heelers extra who never made it out of the pilot episode.
Honest, Miss!
Then again, AI isn’t designed to tell you the truth … its sole aim is to keep you coming back.
I know a couple who use ChatGPT as their relationship counsellor. After every fight, they each go to their own bot. And every single time, they’re told they’re completely right and their partner is the problem.
Separately, they’re thriving. Together, they’re cooked!
And we haven’t just invited AI into the bedroom, it’s now in our bank accounts. Today ChatGPT is the largest provider of financial advice in the world. More than 200 million people a month ask it for money advice, and last week OpenAI went further: US users can now hand it the keys to their actual accounts and get tailored financial advice. Australia won’t be far behind.
My worry is that ChatGPT is like having your bestie do the job: it’ll tell you what you want to hear.
Ask it to validate the hot stock tip your brother-in-law gave you. It’ll find reasons it could work. Ask it to explain why you deserve a boat. It’ll build you a spreadsheet. Ask it whether you really need to pay off your mortgage or whether you could just invest the difference in crypto. It will construct a beautifully logical argument for whichever answer you were hoping for.
It’s a yes-man with a PhD.
Then again, let’s look at the alternative: seeing a real financial adviser will cost you five grand, minimum.
And a lot of people walk out with a template of common sense, and a portfolio so complicated they have no hope of understanding it. Which is exactly the point. Complexity is their job security. That 1% annual fee quietly bleeds you of tens of thousands of dollars a year and almost guarantees you’ll underperform a simple index fund.
So you’re stuck. A bot that flatters you, or an industry that confuses you on purpose.
Well, here’s the third option.
After two decades of writing this column, I can tell you the one thing that separates people who build real wealth from everyone else: they made decisions that felt bad in the short term. They knuckled down and saved up for a deposit when the market was flying. They kept their boring low-cost super when crypto was mooning. They said no when every algorithm and influencer said yes.
Build your career. Boost your super. Pay off your home.
And you don’t need an AI to tell you that.
Tread Your Own Path!
Your Questions & Answers
I will never, EVER read you again
I’m addicted to spending money
Vale Neale Daniher
I will never, EVER read you again
Scott,
I have loyally read your column every week for 20 years. First the sudoku, then straight to you. I’ve clipped your articles and sent them to my kids and grandkids. Never again.
You are a socialist. A cheerleader for a lying, thieving government elected on a false premise. This budget is drowning in waste, CGT grabs, attacks on negative gearing, small business owners crushed under red tape while politicians throw other people’s money around like confetti.
I’m 74. I’ve seen first-hand what profligate politicians do to an economy. You have no idea what these policies will do to this country, or your own children’s future. You’ve lost me, Scott, and judging by the comments under your article, a hell of a lot of your once loyal readers.
Mick
Hey Mick,
Calm your bloody farm!
You’ve been with me 20 years and you’re calling me a socialist?
If you’ve read me that long, you know I’m an equal opportunity offender. I’ve never spruiked a political party in my life, and I’m not about to start now.
Here is the guts of what I actually said about the Budget:
Negative gearing, the introduction of the 50% discount on Capital Gains Tax, and falling interest rates combined to price a generation out of the property market. We need to level the playing field.
The government now wants to tax investment profits the same as workers’ wages.
And the reaction has bordered on hysteria.
Yet as I showed last week in my column, the changes aren’t actually that radical, and in terms of the new proposal of indexing Capital Gains Tax to inflation, it may work out better for investors than the current 50% discount.
Again, I’ve never voted for the Labor Party in my life. I am not in their pocket. It’s just the facts.
Another fact is that these changes (especially the crackdown on distributing income via trusts), is going to mean I pay more tax going forward.
Yet I still think it’s the right call.
Still, we agree on more than you think, Mick: we both want less waste. Lower taxes. Fewer bureaucrats spending other people’s money like confetti.
The question is which party gets us there?
Well, that’s between you and the ballot box.
Keep enjoying the sudoku Mick. Unlike me it’ll never turn commie on you.
I’m addicted to spending money
Scott,
I’m addicted to spending money. Each week I read your replies to people who are married to someone who is reckless with money and you give them advice on how to protect themselves. But it’s me, I’m the problem, and my husband has gone to the effort of hiding money from me so I don’t spend it (thankfully, or we’d be broke). Is there an “AA” for reckless people like me who want to stop but can’t seem to do it? I’m 37, with a good job (earning $140k). However, like any good addict I have all the best intentions (I’ve read your book countless times) and think “just this last purchase” and then it all slides. I want to stop but I can’t.
Ellen
Hi Ellen,
We’re all addicted to something.
Online shopping, porn, booze, social media, gambling, political outrage. Or in Mick’s case, sudoku.
Yours is spending, and you’ve admitted it out loud without dressing it up. That’s the hardest part.
Here’s why willpower won’t fix this: you’re not weak, you’re chasing a feeling. The hit, the relief, the “just this once” that quietly overrides everything you really want to do. Trying harder doesn’t rewire that. A good psychologist does. Ask your GP for a referral, someone who works with compulsive or addictive behaviour. CBT is a good starting point.
There’s a lot of shame in this kind of cycle. Most people carry it alone. It sounds like your husband is a good man. Let him walk with you.
Vale Neale Daniher
There’s been a lot written about Neale this week. As there should be.
In a world of mock outrage and fake influencers, Daniher was the real deal. He was the closest thing this country had to a modern-day stoic — a man who stared down motor neurone disease for more than a decade and chose, every day, to keep fighting.
Here’s something you may not know. He spent his final year not only showing us what true courage looks like, but teaching us: he wrote his last book when his arms, legs and voice had all gone, using eye-gaze technology.
This week I’ve been reading it to my sons.
Everyone talks about resilience these days, but Neale actually lived it. And in his final book, he shows you how you can do the same.
Buy a copy of The Power of Choice.
Share it with someone you love.
Thanks for reading!
Scott.