AI | Prosumer Connect

Will Chat GPT and other AI live up to the ‘boats and rising tide’ aphorism?

Shaun Marshall — Mon, 17 Apr 2023 11:59:17 +0000

Financial and risk advisers have been worrying about the potential impact of robo-advice and Robo-advisers on their practices for over a decade now. Yes, dear reader, according to Wikipedia.org, the first robo-advice platform saw the light of day back in 2010. In the 13-and-a-bit years that have since flashed by, financial advice professionals have witnessed staggering developments in technology, with each innovation increasing the capabilities of robo-advice platforms, and rekindling fears of human advice obsolescence.

AI adoption and / or experimentation

The world’s rapid adoption of and / or experimentation with the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, ChatGPT, has raised questions over whether mankind has pushed the technology envelope too far. In a recent development, Elon Musk and a group of like-minded tech billionaires argued for a temporary ban on AI research on the basis it could pose a ‘threat to civilisation’ if allowed to develop without sensible checks and balances. These billionaires have less to worry about than the working class who could soon find their blue- or white-collar jobs ‘gobbled up’ by an AI. PS, as a creative, this writer finds himself near the top of a long and growing list of skills that are easily replicated by AIs. To support this observation, the current thinking is that AI could make up to 85 million jobs redundant globally, by 2025.

The question each of us must grapple with is simple: will AI live up to the ‘rising tide lifts all boats’ aphorism, or will the tide rise so rapidly that only the biggest and most seaworthy vessels manage to stay afloat? There is so much opinion and thought leadership circulating on the topic of AI, and more specifically ChatGPT, that this question is quite difficult to answer. One example is an article by Professor Yudhvir Seetharam, Head of Analytics, Insights and Research at FNB Commercial, penned under the title ‘The benefits, and potential difficulties, of ChatGPT as a business tool’. “ChatGPT has raised awareness of the potential that AI has to add significant value to businesses of all shapes and sizes,” he writes, adding that the ‘tool’ can help businesses and employees to save time and improve efficiencies.

On the flipside, he identifies a handful of limitations in the product, and risks to early adopters. “The information that ChatGPT is able to provide is highly contextual, so while it can quickly identify trends and patterns, it is unlikely to be able to provide the same level of analysis as a human researcher,” writes Seetharam. He suggests that businesses weigh up the benefits of speed and efficiency that the tool offers against the need for accuracy and depth of analysis. This writer agrees with the article’s warning about the broad, generic and non-specific data that ChatGPT delivers at present, but expects both future iterations of this solution and specialised AIs still in development to address such concerns.

Caution required, especially with social media

Businesses that rely on ChatGPT to generate content for their social media marketing initiatives are urged to exercise caution. Seetharam points out that generic content fails to “capture the finer marketing requirements of the business [and] is unlikely to be aligned with a business’s brand or messaging”. It is a sensible warning; but any brand or marketing executive who believes they can fully automate this function are living in the proverbial Cloud Cuckoo Land, for now. The article acknowledges humans are still needed to extract the maximum benefit from today’s AI tools. “It is important to remember that ChatGPT’s insights are only as good as the questions it is being asked; if a business is asking the wrong questions or focusing on the wrong information, the AI may be unable to provide the insights they need,” the Prof writes. In other words, AI is a tool, not a solution.

Global professional services firm, PwC, adopts a similar view in its report titled ‘AI catalysing a workforce revolution, now’. The firm reckons that AI will transform jobs; but that how your business is transformed by this fact remains up to you. “When it comes to the workforce, organisations cannot protect the jobs that are made redundant by technology, but they can protect their people through adaptability and reskilling,” they opine, in a media release to coincide with the report launch. Furthermore, the firm points out that AI has seen exponential growth since 2015 across sub-fields like deep-learning neural networks; machine learning; natural language processing modules: and robotics. And it is no surprise that ChatGPT, which reached one million users just five days after its release, is central to the firm’s research.

AI that generates new and original content

Mark Allderman, PwC Africa Technology-enabled Transformation Lead, offers some more insights into ChatGPT: “Generative AI refers to a type of artificial intelligence that has the ability to generate original and new content, including text, images, music and other forms of media; unlike other AI systems, which are typically designed to recognise patterns and make predictions based on existing data, generative AI operates by creating novel content from scratch”. He adds that the technology is fit for purpose to streamline tasks and increase productivity, though use cases remain dependent on how businesses manage its adoption and uptake.

PwC assures readers that AI-powered robots will transform rather than steal jobs, but this writer is not as confident… Why? When you first use the technology, you will be blown away by its capabilities; and you soon get lost in an internal debate about the powers that will be built into the second, third and fourth iterations of these tools, not to mention AIs that are developed for a specific industry or niche. In the context of the financial services sector, you might consider ‘Four ways AI can benefit the insurance industry’ published by the Insurtech company AgentSync. The article leads with “advancements in technology have given new life to the slow, inefficient processes common in the insurance industry”.

The Insurtech singles out fraud; claims processing; producer onboarding; and client communications as four insurer functions that AI will revolutionise over the coming years. “Technology is already helping us stop fraudulent activity in the insurance industry … AI-powered fraud detection systems can memorise patterns and alert users to suspicious activity,” they write. AI plus big data, faster computer processing speeds and machine learning make it possible for banks and insurers to put millions of hours of call centre and terabytes of email data under the spotlight, in real time, to flag potential threats for further investigation. Many insurers are also experimenting with integrating AI into the claims processing function in recognition of the benefit in faster and more accurate claims settlement at a lower cost to the insurer.

What is this ‘producer onboarding’ you speak of?

The ‘producer onboarding’ term is not that familiar in the South African context. However, AgentSync identifies opportunities for AI to give businesses an edge in the context of hiring becoming increasingly competitive. “Agencies with outdated producer onboarding processes risk losing talent to competitors that can offer a more efficient experience; AI can be a powerful tool in the onboarding process, specifically when it comes to new employee paperwork, IT setup and training,” they write. Fortunately, the client communications edge from AI is more intuitive. “Nowadays, clients communicate via email, video and voice calls, submission forms and even text; AI-operated chat boxes are an easy way for clients to get answers fast [and] online communication makes it easy to send and receive information anytime and just about anywhere,” writes AgentSync.

Will Chat GPT and other AI live up to the ‘boats and rising tide’ aphorism? Given the amount of human input that is required to adopt the technology, the answer is a resounding no. But the writer offers a resounding “yes” in response to whether AI will result in staggering job losses. Granted, these job losses are likely to be a longer-term concern. For now, “while there are valid concerns about the impact of AI on the job market, there are exponential benefits that could positively impact the workforce and the economy,” says Riaan Singh, PwC South Africa Digital Transformation Lead. PwC has started the ‘impact of AI’ journey by listing jobs that will be transformed and / or replaced by AI over time. PS, the PwC report is probably worth a read.

No substitute for holistic business approach, yet

“As fantastic as ChatGPT may seem, an AI language model is not (yet) a substitute for a holistic business approach, built on relevant quantitative and qualitative data, and underpinned by deep experience and an integrated approach to understanding markets and customers,” concludes Seetharam. And Allderman takes a similar position. He notes that a movement in a new direction requires informed, strong and resilient leaders. “However, in a fast-moving technology environment, it can be challenging for leaders to shift to a new way of working … coupled with strong leadership, enabling governance of generative AI capabilities and use cases is critical,” he says.

Source: FA News

New mindset required for adopting new tech in insurance

Shaun Marshall — Mon, 15 Aug 2022 09:12:10 +0000

According to McKinsey, the tech-enabled insurer of the future will bear little resemblance to the institutions that exist today.

Digitalisation, cloud computing, robotic process automation, and the Internet of Things are just some of the elements influencing the direction of the industry.

But perhaps the most crucial is how changing customer expectations puts the pressure on insurers to adapt to become more digitally-driven.

Whether it is claims processing or underwriting, analysing data or developing personalised solutions, insurance has moved beyond the traditional paper-based environment.

It has become an industry that more intelligently modernises processes and systems to extract maximum value from the massive amount of data it has on hand.

A transformed landscape

EY believes that for insurers to undergo an effective digital transformation, they must remain cognisant of eight components.

These include the cloud, intelligent automation, advanced analytics, the blockchain, cyber risk, and digital architecture.

Central to this transformation is the notion that insurers must become more agile and adaptive to change than ever before.

The past two years have seen customers grow increasingly aware of the service options available to them. It is less about the bells and whistles of any specific technology and more about how the insurer uses these technologies to unlock value for customers.

Therefore, one of the keys to successful digital transformation is an ability to identify, and a subsequent willingness to embrace, technology that delivers on customer expectations.

Another element is how the insurer goes about modernising legacy processes and systems that were critical building blocks in shaping who they are.

Digitalisation is about more than just ‘ripping and replacing’ everything; it is as much about a change in mindset as it is about changing or evolving the organisation’s core technologies and processes.

It is getting personal

This change in employee mindset is not easy and requires a deliberate intervention.

If employees do not understand the reasoning behind digitalisation or how to use the technologies being implemented, then projects become significantly more challenging to complete successfully.

Research shows that three critical factors are needed if digital transformation is to be successful – team communication and collaboration, workplace relationships and team identification, and team adaptability and resilience.

The golden thread tying these together is clarity of communication. In this way, employees will understand why they should embrace skills development initiatives and that they should expect a potential shift in their key focus areas.

For instance, if automation is incorporated, which will take over manual, time-intensive tasks, they must realise that their roles will evolve to focus more on delivering strategic value and that they will be trained and coached to do so.

Deloitte writes that companies can now create digitally integrated, ‘on-demand’ teams capable of tapping into and collaborating with extensive networks of innovators, technical experts, and seasoned professionals from all over the world.

Deloitte cautions that even if leadership is on board, getting a company to fully embrace a digital strategy as a culture can remain challenging, especially for traditional businesses like insurers.

They typically find that there are still employees who prefer ‘old-fashioned’ methods of phone calls or in-person meetings.

It comes down to how the insurer will manage this balance between the old and the new.

Finding a good digital culture that does this while aligning with the culture of the enterprise becomes even more important than the technologies being used.

Source: IOL

AI tech to predict climate change – possible solution for future KZN floods

Shaun Marshall — Mon, 09 May 2022 12:33:13 +0000

The aftermath of heavy rains and flooding in parts of KwaZulu-Natal. Picture: Kopano Tlape.

Climate change and the accelerated occurrence of natural disasters could arguably be one of the greatest threats facing humanity.

Just in the last few weeks, we have seen the disastrous impact that unprecedented flooding has had in our own KwaZulu-Natal. It is now essential to accurately predict climate change well in advance to help us better plan for its potentially devastating impact on population and infrastructure security.

Successful AI-based studies in the United States (US) are already predicting weather movements in California as well as floods in the US Midwest. Over 40 years, we’ve seen 5000 billion tons of ice melt in the Artic. Studies are happening right now looking at Canada, Greenland, and other Arctic areas, that are using the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies to analyse the movements of the Greenhouse effect – i.e. the process that causes the planet to warm.

AI deployed and run on the correct infrastructure can predict the behaviour of extreme weather events across the globe and do so days in advance. At 100,000 times faster than traditional numerical weather models, this is a significant step towards building a digital twin Earth – a virtual model of a real-world object, machine, or system that can be used to assess how the real-world counterpart is performing, diagnose or predict faults, or simulate how future changes could alter its behaviour.

AI tools such as convolutional neural networks can analyse large-scale circulation patterns and high-precipitation events associated with extreme weather. There are also other AI models, such as NVIDIA’s FourCastNet, which emulates the dynamics of global weather patterns and predicts extremes with unprecedented speed and accuracy. A seven-day forecast is done in a fraction of a second, five orders of magnitude faster than Numerical Weather Predictions (i.e.,100 000 times faster).

When it comes to weather and climate prediction, AI tools can help with short-term predictions (± seven days) and long-term predictions. Stanford researchers developed a machine learning model that uses atmospheric patterns to predict extreme precipitation, which may lead to flooding. This tool can be used in the short term for predicting when disaster may strike and in the long term for building infrastructure that is resilient to climate change.

The SA weather service has been using global best practice meteorological tools. However, these tools run on ageing infrastructure. However, late last year, the SA Weather Service set out to procure and implement a high-performance ICT infrastructure. Yet, this ostensibly only performs the same as traditional Numerical Weather Prediction forecasting models. It is expensive, time-consuming, and limited. Where are the AI tools that we need for weather prediction in this country?

The reality is that Public Cloud and High-Performance Super Computers, specifically designed and engineered to perform AI are needed to run models on tera-bytes of data, analyse these datasets, predict patterns, and visualise the data using earth system models and geo-spatial mapping. Data Scientists, Meteorologists, IT infrastructure, and Engineering staff are now an integral component of numerical weather predictions. Based on the recent flooding, I would say we are in desperate need of this predictive power.

What we see and hear from the global climate modelling community is that the AI models, along with the science, are getting much stronger. In South Africa, I would recommend we pool our economic resources together, championed by the SA Weather Service and research institutes, to co-invest not only financial resources but time and effort to implement the correct models, geo spatial mapping, and earth modelling frameworks to proactively predict extreme precipitation events. The open-source algorithm “software” is free to implement, but putting this together with the right minds, financiers, and collaborators is the only way to yield successful results.

In KwaZulu-Natal, for instance, this cost could range between R25m-R100m or more, depending on the full scope. Yet, between the public and private sectors, and based on the rampant destruction of the recent flooding, I’m sure a plan can be made. It must.

Source: IOL