Why AI Can Teach You What Many Expensive Courses Sell

In a genuinely surprising and refreshingly honest chapter, Felix Bick’s How Not to Get Scammed by AI Trading Apps makes an argument that cuts directly against the interests of the paid course industry: much of what these courses sell is available for free.

Bick states this directly in Chapter 51: a significant portion of foundational trading and investing education — basic technical analysis concepts, risk management principles, order types, and portfolio diversification theory — is well-documented, publicly available information that does not require a paid course or proprietary “system” to learn. General-purpose AI assistants can now explain these foundational concepts clearly and interactively, at essentially no cost.

Bick is careful to qualify this, though, avoiding an overcorrection: this doesn’t mean AI can replace genuine mentorship, real trading experience, or the psychological discipline that develops only through actual practice. But it does mean that the specific foundational content bundled into many expensive courses is often available through free or low-cost channels, undermining a key premise of courses priced primarily on access to “exclusive” basic knowledge.

The chapter’s practical recommendation is genuinely money-saving: before paying for a course primarily to learn foundational concepts, checking whether free resources — regulatory investor-education websites, established financial education nonprofits, or AI-assisted learning — already cover the same material is a reasonable and often highly effective first step.

This chapter is notable for its intellectual honesty — Bick, an AI professional himself, isn’t positioning AI as a magic solution, but he’s also not afraid to point out that much of what’s sold as exclusive, valuable knowledge is actually freely accessible information dressed up as proprietary expertise.

For anyone considering a costly trading course primarily for foundational education, this chapter of How Not to Get Scammed by AI Trading Apps offers Felix Bick’s genuinely money-saving perspective.