The end of theory? AI and ignorance in financial markets

AI’s growing role in finance challenges traditional expectations of transparency and theoretical understanding. While machine learning (ML) models enhance financial decision-making, they remain largely agnostic to established financial theories, producing knowledge and ignorance in ways that differ from traditional models like VaR, DCF, and Black-Scholes. This essay explores the decoupling of AI models from theoretical financial knowledge and the resulting forms of ignorance. Using 22 semi-structured interviews, we investigate how ML models generate epistemic uncertainties. We focus on causal ignorance: AI systems, including those supported by XAI, fail to provide genuine causal explanations. Because understanding causation is inherently theoretical, AI-driven finance remains theory-agnostic and marked by theoretical ignorance. We explore how this ignorance differs from that of traditional models and what it implies for the role of theory in finance. Finally, we present three possible scenarios for the future of theory in finance and outline directions for further research.