I fear Hal, SkyNet, The Borg Collective, all of it. I really can’t see how a collective machine intelligence “organism” wouldn’t look at the human race’s propensity for aggression and ultimately come to the conclusion that our existence wasn’t beneficial long term. Indubitably the reason I eat so much great KC barbecue.
In the late seventies, however, I was a big fan of the Sci-Fi classic Logan’s Run, where a machine intelligence ran a sheltered community, controlling every aspect of life, and everyone on their 30th birthday got called to Carrousel where they ostensibly had the chance to be “Renewed” but all just floated up in the air and got fried. Some run rather than participate, and Logan is a guy whose job it is to hunt them down and fry them, till he decides to run and…long story short…chaos ensues. (For a while I was a bit conflicted about him running off with Jenny Agutter instead of Farrah Fawcett, but that could be because I, like millions of other teenage boys, had the iconic Farrah poster. But I digress.)
We’re in the age of AI and our industry is embracing it and, adroitly segueing away from my propensity for paranoia, many are the benefits of AI to carriers, BGAs and agents alike. Both the Cohens and Charlie Gipple explore ChatGPT in this issue, and Ken Leibow frequently sneaks the topic into his columns and my nightmares. But a group I belong to uses the acronym FEAR as False Evidence Appearing Real, so let’s move on.
Charlie, in particular, describes his plan to utilyze AI to collate verifiably independent product and investment strategy information to impart to agents and clients to aid in decision making, and that seems like a pretty awesome tool. The Cohens were impressed with the way AI answered questions regarding the advisability of DI. All three, as was I, were gratified that the ultimate recommendations in the ChatGPT conclusions included discussions with qualified insurance experts to decide which course of action best fit the client’s individual circumstances.
I’ve voiced my concerns about the direction the industry is heading with more and more emphasis on automated underwriting. Granted the carriers need to make a profit, those without health complications are provided coverage much more quickly, which is a good thing of course, and carriers are provided added protections against omissions clearing the contestability period. Risk assessment aids from DMV records to prescription drug histories are all accessible much more quickly, and the ability to draw from health data aggregators speeds up health record acquisition. There’s a bunch more, and more yet to come. I just hope we don’t get to the point that anomalies just generate an automatic and irreversible decline (and of course that decline ends up in an accessible database as well, granting its recipient the modern day Mark of Cain).
The optimist in me hopes AI might actually aid those with risk impairments. AI could virtually instantly provide an underwriter with a plethora of different contingencies and scenarios, noting further studies for positive outcomes with treatment program diligence, suggestions for additional testing to further evaluate the risk (and often benefitting the proposed insured at the same time with treatment options, etc.). As an ever increasing amount of data is accessible and collated, AI could even present the underwriter with potential pitfalls of one particular symptom or test result that could then alert the proposed client to the possibility of a perhaps rare indicator of a condition of which they and their doctors were completely unaware. It is undeniable that AI will be a boon to diagnostic healthcare.
According to LIMRA info there are at least 106 million Americans living with a life insurance coverage gap. Per the LIMRA website, “This is increasingly critical since LIMRA research shows that four in 10 families say they would face financial hardship within six months if the primary wage earner died. For one in five, it would be within just one month.”
It’s all in how creatively and compassionately one uses the tools. My somewhat convoluted point is that I hope AI isn’t used to institutionally reduce the cost to life carriers by simply easing the determination to antiselect those with less than optimum health—and relegate them and their families to the financial Carrousel.[SPH]
