'Fast Money' trader Dan Nathan thinks A.I. craze is ‘Sillyville.’ Here's why he's not buying it

Published Mon, Feb 6 20236:58 PM ESTUpdated Tue, Feb 7 20237:16 AM EST

The recent explosion in popularity around ChatGPT has made people excited about artificial intelligence again, but investors need to be careful not to get swept up in the hype, according to Dan Nathan, principal of RiskReversal Advisors. On Monday, Alphabet's Google announced a new conversational AI technology it will open up to public testing, called Bard, which would rival ChatGPT. Minutes after, Microsoft announced teased a news reveal slated for Tuesday that could be related to ChatGPT. Separately, but in the same day, C3.ai closed up 6.45% for the day and notched a fresh 52-week high of $30.92 earlier in the session. Through Monday's close, shares are up more than 170% from C3.ai's 52-week low in late December. "This is a company that went public in late 2021," Nathan said on CNBC's " Fast Money " Monday night. "It was down 95% from its highs just a month and a half ago, and now we're talking about it with a $3 billion market cap here." C3.ai's recent tear is one thing that seems "just so stupid to me and kind of encapsulate what's going on in the market right now," he said. "If we start seeing companies put .ai at the end of the company [name], we've been through that, we know what happens here," he added. "I'm just saying that we're kind of in Sillyville here." Nathan was alluding to the impulse to change a company's name to reflect the current craze – like the metaverse, or blockchain – and generate excitement around the stock. "We see all these bigger companies, these publicly traded companies, spraying some money around… that's probably a better way to do this," Nathan added, using Microsoft and its partnership with OpenAI as an example. "Invest in these companies, don't buy them right now. The regulatory environment probably doesn't kind of lend itself to that." Kingsley Crane, equity research senior analyst at Canaccord Genuity, said earlier on "Fast Money" that investors must be vigilant around the space and should be aware of whether AI is a differentiator for the company they're investing in. "Investors need to be careful," he said. "A lot of times if a company is saying they have superior AI, that could be a warning sign." The size and the quality of the data set an AI service uses is one of the best predictors of success, he added.