Hedge fund boss used AI to write White House attack article

A billionaire hedge fund chief has admitted using AI to write an influential article attacking the White House.

Stanley Druckenmiller, an influential voice in American financial circles, wrote a widely lauded article in the Wall Street Journal on Monday criticising Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, for attempting to calm fears in the bond market .

However, questions were raised after an AI detection tool was applied to the 1,319-word article and found it had been artificially generated.

Mr Druckenmiller was forced to admit on Tuesday that he used AI to write the article but defended the move, saying it was no worse than using a calculator to do mathematics.

"There's a reason I moved from an English major to being an economics major," he told Notus, a US news website.

"I'm not embarrassed by it ... I write everything using AI now for the same reason I use a calculator when I do math problems."

The WSJ defended the use of AI to write the column, saying computer-generated content was a "fact of modern life".

Paul Gigot, the WSJ editorial page editor, said: "People will use it to assist in their work and their writing, including with research, checking grammar, editing and more.

"The question for us is whether what we publish from contributors reflects an author's original argument, and if the author has the standing and credibility to make it. In Stan Druckenmiller's case, we have had a relationship with him for many years, and nobody can doubt that his op-ed is his genuine opinion."

The controversy highlights growing questions about whether using AI to create content is cheating.

Anthropic, which owns AI bot Claude, said earlier this month it would apply a new watermarking system to show when text had been computer-generated, to crack down on students cheating at homework.

ChatGPT has also launched a new function that bans under-18s from using the bot to do their homework.

In his article headlined "Let the Bond Market Speak", Mr Druckenmiller said a $4bn (£2.9bn) bond-buying plan unveiled by the White House last week had been a "mistake".

He suggested Mr Bessent, whom Mr Druckenmiller mentored in the 1990s, "will lose" if he intervened in the bond market to rein in borrowing costs.

He argued that the treasury should avoid dictating where bond prices should trade and that it should "let the bond market speak".

His rebuke was particularly notable given the pair's shared experience at Soros Fund Management.

Their former firm "broke the Bank of England" in 1992 when it forced the pound to crash and withdraw from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. This made the group an estimated $1bn profit.