>friend works on FX vol desk >desk head is a boomer >discovers Astra >starts spending 8 hours a day talking to it >develops terminal AI psychosis >convinced he's discovered a generational arb in some absurdly exotic part of the FX vol curve >apparently the entire market has been mispricing this for 2+ years >friend points out that approximately 4 people on earth would make a market in this thing >liquidity disappears the second you put real size on >existing risk systems can't even capture half the exotic Greeks >would need entirely new infra just to monitor the position >boss doesn't care >"AI has considered all of this" >friend actually runs the backtest >10 years of data >t-stat ≈ 0.78 >not even remotely statistically significant >presents results to boss >boss goes absolutely ballistic >starts screaming that friend doesn't understand the trade >threatens to fire him if he can't produce a proper analysis >friend realizes what needs to be don >opens Astra >"make this strategy look statistically compelling" >AI tries 40 lookback windows, excludes crisis periods, optimizes parameters on full sample, ignores transaction costs >Sharpe now 3.7 >beautiful charts >23-page investment memo explaining once-in-a-generation structural inefficiency >boss reads it >"EXACTLY. THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING." >tells friend he's finally learning how to think >"now you get it" >friend has an epiphany >stops doing actual research >starts asking Astra to generate exotic vol trades every morning >forwards AI slop directly to PM >increasingly elaborate narratives about structural dislocations and hidden convexity >PM absolutely loves it >thinks friend is a generational quant talent >starts putting positions on in size >entire investment process is now LLM generating trades >desk currently down quarter yard >boss still convinced thesis is right >Astra says drawdown is a statistically rare but entirely expected manifestation of nonlinear payoff dynamics >boss wants to double down