Where Are All Those Benefits Promised by AI?

Having covered developments in artificial intelligence for going on 35 years, I’ve long been struck by the confusing expectations. Based on what many were saying back in the ’80s, we should all be working for our robot overlords by now. Yet people are also often too cautious: If I could tell my 1986 self that I’m now calling out to my Amazon Echo for random factoids that I just have to know that instant or that I’m dictating text messages to Siri, my earlier self would have called for the men with the butterfly nets.

Sorting through the confusion, I’ve decided that artificial intelligence is a moving target, an aspiration for capabilities that might be possible just over the horizon. Once something becomes reality — even something as mind-boggling as speech recognition — what was AI becomes garden-variety computing.

So, I haven’t been overly surprised in my seven years with ITL to see the insurance industry light up at the prospects for AI and, at the same time, have trouble taming them.

Two big studies released last week, one by BCG and the other by Willis Towers Watson, shed light both on how to realize the gains that AI can provide — and on how the industry remains unrealistic... continue reading >