Author: Chris Cline
Today's agents receive many questions about today's use of artificial intelligence (AI), how our stakeholders should be thinking about it, what the concerns are, and where to consider making investments. In short, does ACT have a position on AI? A position on AI? Something so incredibly vast, powerful, scary, and relatively early in our true understanding. As a complete and total diversion, this made me think of the oceans.
The oceans are incredibly vast. Likely more so than most of us can actually comprehend. While we have been able to utilize the oceans for many good things to the benefit of society for centuries, we have explored and understand so very little about them. On one hand, oceans are a significant source of food, allow for global shipping and cultural exchanges, enable power generation, provide significant economic benefits via tourism, inspire art, writing, and song, and draw people from everywhere to take in their beauty. On the other hand, when we approach the deep, dark, and powerful ocean without caution it can wreak havoc in very small and very large ways via flooding, erosion, rogue waves at sea, the sizeable number of sea lives that cause danger to humankind, and the pure peril that comes with exploring the unknown. Additionally, most of the ocean is unexplored, misunderstood, and we are learning new things about it all the time.
In so many ways, the ocean seems to be a strong analogy for AI.
Afterall, many still largely misunderstand AI. We are all learning new things about the incredible capabilities and potential benefits to society, yet at the same time we are trying to better understand the risks. Though AI has been a part of some companies' capabilities for several years, more recently we are seeing specific examples where AI helps agents and carriers in areas such as social media and marketing content generation ideation, customer chat, contract reviews, coverage form comparisons, phone answering/customer service, minimizing duplicate entry needs, code writing, download reviews and reporting, data integration and aggregation, pricing models, fraud detection, mass process efficiency evaluation, and cat modeling. Though this list is far from all-encompassing, AI is already a vast and diverse collection of ways in which
AI is delivering or promising positive impacts on business and society, and we are really just getting started. On the other hand, there are some very deep rabbit holes one can explore if they really want to look at the potential downside of AI and the adverse impact it could pose on society. That conversation is for a different time and place, but there are some legitimate risks we need to mitigate and are talking about, such as E&O risk, licensing questions, fraud and misrepresentation, talent and training needs, staff redundancies, brand sincerity, data privacy, and more.
What is our position on AI? Much like the ocean, we all have a lot to learn as we explore, try new things, make mistakes, gain capabilities, and learn how to live with AI as we evolve as a society. For many, the capabilities are very new and bounce between romantic and exciting and scary and existential. For me personally, and at ACT, we tend to view the upsides as a focal point and will invest time in continuing our understanding of new capabilities and legitimate risks. We'll continue to work with our amazing ACT partners and relationships to bring these conversations and learnings to our stakeholders via social media, webinars, speaking engagements, and in-person discussions. Please let us know if you'd personally like to be a part of these conversations.
Dive in, go snorkeling, take the cruise, rent the ocean view condominium, order extra conch fritters. Just be aware of the risks. Dive in, experiment with ChatGPT, follow AI content, talk to your tech partners and carriers about it, try some cool new things and keep learning. Just be aware of the risks as we all learn together.
Published: January 26, 2024
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