We've all heard stories about the potential for robots powered by AI taking jobs away from us. But this isn't something to fear about the future. What if I told you that it is already happening?
Currently on the chopping block: insurance brokers.
Starting last January, Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance Company started to incorporate a machine learning application, IBM Watson Explorer, into its business operations in Japan. The goal is to replace insurance claim processors, cutting $1.1 million worth of salaries annually. This software can do the following:
- Read patient medical histories and certificates written by doctors to ascertain injuries, surgical procedure names, and length of hospital stays.
- Make decisions to determine insurance claim payouts.
- Convert verbal conversations with customers into text.
- Perform sentiment analysis of this text to determine whether the customer is using positive or negative words.
As workers are given a cardboard box and shown the door, Fukoku is enthusiastic about the cost savings, which will help the company pay off IBM's installation and maintenance costs over a relatively short two year period.
Zurich Insurance, the fifth largest insurer in Europe, completed a trial program last May using artificial intelligence to process claims. The results were impressive. Average processing time on claims was reduced from one hour to five seconds.
Even though insurance is a highly regulated industry, requiring a certain level of expertise that would normally keep interlopers at bay, it's proving to be too lucrative of a target. Tech start-ups are entering into the fray as well. Lemonade Inc., as one example, is currently using AI bots to set up new policies and process claims. The company boasts that it can set up a new policy for renters or homeowners insurance in as little as ninety seconds, and it can process a claim in three minutes.
While increasing corporate profits is a welcome goal for shareholders, one wonders if anyone is considering the far larger and destructive impacts to society as large numbers of workers lose their jobs. I would hope that we can give these folks more than a t-shirt that says ...
"Lost my job to a bot. Feeling a little Fukoku'd. :/"
Credit: The LEGO Group
References
https://www.claimsjournal.com/news/international/2017/05/24/278597.htm
What is funny is I end up in debates with people whether this will even happen, like it is something that is up for dispute.
Isnt it ironic that every major tech titan who has weighed in on the subject says that there will be massive job loss due to the technological advancements we are going to see over the next 5-10 years. Of course, this is supported by organizations from Morgan Stanley to the World Economic Council and their research.
The financial arena is primed for total technological disruption. They started 15 years ago with the research and implementation of computerization. It is really suited for automation since it is a numbers based industry. Fast forward 15 years and you see the loss of traders, brokers, and even analysts. I wrote a blog post about this very thing earlier today.
Indeed. I heard a financial analyst comment recently that most of the trade volume that you see everyday on the NYSE is algorithmic trading.
Thats insane! I would have never thought such an industry as insurance would be replace by computers.
I can understand the applications in manufacturing but wow, insurance?
And I have been in the field of electronics and computers since the mid 80s.
Never saw this coming.
Tech can be sneaky. We're cyber ninjas.
Very true
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