The only thing is that you need 10 engineers at over 100k a year to make sure Siber works properly and is up to date with all underwriting and legal guidelines.
That is a non-issue Jay considering he can run a 20M book on his own. Think of it like a sports franchise with the engineers as the trainers keeping the players performing at a peak level.
This article leaves out so much. First, IKEA doesn’t sell robots programmed to quote, rate, negotiate and bind insurance. Where does that come from? It would be great to know. This lady sounds like exactly the kind of nut that would inherit a business and fire everybody. Was she really paying so much of her office below $30k a year? If so how did she afford a robot and a computer system that can do fairly sophisticated stuff like this? The robot was cheap but what about the software?
I also have to wonder about a person who is worried about computers and humans side by side but immediately ditches her E&O policy. I’m sure a new program like this will neeeever make an error.
Automation is going to impact the industry a lot, but the only disruption here is probably going to be hiring new employees or going out of business.
Too bad this story couldn’t have been written better because there are a lot of interesting things at play here. Oh well hearing the robot talk aboutt it’s golf game is just as good.
Even $15\hr is well below the median income there and sad for a person running a business in this industry.
Finally, and I might be wrong, but I believe Austin only increased their minimum wage to $13/hr, not $15. If so this lady is terribly wrong or has an agenda. Miscalculating something like this by 15% would be pretty bad. But again, I could be wrong.
Haha good catch. I didn’t look at the name but don’t know if I would have read it right. I had a feeling since this is one of the days most websites are terrible. This is a good original attempt.
Don’t beat yourself up too badly, UW. Snopes had to actually report on an Onion story that suggested Cuban refugees actually clung to the wings of Air Force One because that many conservatives were believing it.
Funny as conservatives consider Cuba a repressive state and welcome political refugees from there. Where liberals consider it a progressive state with a wonderful healthcare system which nobody should want to leave.
April 1, 2016 at 2:42 pm
Agent says:
Like or Dislike:
7
8
Dave, I got through about a paragraph before realizing what day it was and had a good laugh.
Of course, IJ has been publishing articles about the demise of the Independent Agent this year in favor of promoting online insurance buyers.
By the way Trump haters, Property/Casualty 360 published on 3-29-16 by Best that the Presidential Candidate most favored by the Insurance Industry was Trump. The least favored was Sanders at less than 1%. Hilliary wasn’t much higher than him.
April 1, 2016 at 5:22 pm
Agent says:
Like or Dislike:
2
5
Who else on this blog would write a six paragraph diarrhea of the keyboard than you? This is a joke article, get it?
Bob is a lot smarter than you and notice that he didn’t write a goofy diatribe like you did before you finally realized that it was an April Fools day joke.
Quite Clever!
I’m hoping Donald Trump will also come forward and say “April Fools! You didn’t think I was REALLY interested in the Presidency, did you?!”…. but alas, I doubt that will happen. :\
What are the odds that the entire Trump campaign has been an April Fool’s day joke? Seriously, what if he just held a press conference today and said, “Gotcha! I can’t believe you guys REALLY thought that I was going to have Mexico pay for a wall, ban Muslims (except the rich ones) from the US, bomb the hell out of ________, punish women for getting abortions, etc. etc.”
It would make sense, and would probably be easier to accept than the reality in this case.
louie, did you read the Property Casualty 360 enewsletter? By the way, the new CEO for Travelers Alan Schnitzer said in today’s addition that the corporate tax rate needs to be lowered or the country will continue to have companies move offshore including the insurance industry. The US has the highest corporate rate in the developed world. Thank you Obama for not helping business. Your record is intact for 7+ years.
Actually, it is Reagan’s economic model in tact for 30+ years. Epic fail! But let’s just keep doing the same thing. No, really, it will trickle down eventually.
So if a company asks your for proof of E & O insurance to update their files, you’re going to say, I don’t need E & O, I have a robot? You may be able to get rid of EPLI, But E & O? Where does the robot get their E & O from?
Disappointed to see this on Insurance Journal with links to other fake articles. Are they merging with US weekly and the National Enquirer…..anything to make people read your stuff huh?
The reality is that AI and Machine Learning as portrayed so well in this piece is just around the corner. We will soon experience the biggest disruption the world has ever witnessed.
Are you prone to exaggerate much? The biggest disruption in this country and possibly the world was the sub prime mortgage mess and Obama and his policies, particularly Obamacare which has lingered far too long and caused so much grief. Add that to his statement that the biggest security threat was Climate Change. Progressive Socialism practiced in Europe and now here is a mental disease with apparently no cure.
If you believe I am exaggerating you’ve got a thing coming. The global disruption caused by AI and Machine Learning will make all the things you mentioned look like a picnic, even “Progressive Socialism”.
I enjoyed this. Especially well timed since we just released our first product that basically can do all these things. It still needs a person – insurance professional – to teach it, but once you teach it, it never forgets.
One other difference, you still own the agency. Tyler Cowen, in his book Average is Over, describes the combination of chess playing computers and human teams as the best chess players in the world. The key is the partnership between the human team and the machine. I believe this is the winning future combination for independent agents.
The things that give me comfort is having high capacity computers and a top notch operating system and good employees that can work with customers on their protection needs. Automation can only go so far and the human touch is required for advice.
Agent, I agree with you that human touch will always be required. What we need to understand is that in years to come, we may need very small numbers of people to provide that human touch. Restaurant automation is big around the world – very little human touch needed or required. All this is moving with breakneck speed. Also remember that hospitality is an enormously labour intensive industry making it a good space for replacing people with AI. Just Google “automated restaurant”. I do not want to be alarmist, but I believe we should be aware of possible undesirable consequences of AI.
“…. the combination of chess playing computers and human teams as the best chess players in the world. …”
This would have been quite plausible when Cowen wrote his book way back in 2013. Things have changed rapidly; we now have Machine Learning. This means that the “team” has now become surplus to requirement. If you like Chess, follow the link in my comment: “This is a must read”
This is a must-read – if you’d like a glimpse of the very near future.
Some good news and bad news. Let us hope the transition is smooth.
“….she successfully handled one of every ten calls in the first week, and by the end of the second month, she could resolve six of ten calls. Because of this, it’s been estimated that she can put 250 million people out of a job, worldwide….”
Many Qs to be asked regards robotic technology.
A continuation of the loss of scribes to the printing machine, printers to the computer technology, factory workers to automation, farm workers to tractors etc etc.
Who will buy products if they don’t have an income?
What will individuals do with their ‘time’ if they cannot work?
How will the State & Corporations react to increasing civil unrest?
What are the Military making of robotics e.g. drones?
Which science, information etc will we be able to believe?
And so on ….
The only thing is that you need 10 engineers at over 100k a year to make sure Siber works properly and is up to date with all underwriting and legal guidelines.
That is a non-issue Jay considering he can run a 20M book on his own. Think of it like a sports franchise with the engineers as the trainers keeping the players performing at a peak level.
Great story but only appropriate for today.
Don’t understand how she can get rid of the E&O. Have carriers waived the requirement?
What day is this?
“Frankly, most customers say he’s nicer than my former employees, but don’t print that.”
:D Top-class April Fools article from IJ!
But seriously, this is like 5 years from becoming reality.
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
I forgot to add, unless it’s an April Fools joke, which would make sense even though I’ve seen this on 2 other insurance sites.
Agreed! This new writer “Lirpa Loof” seems to get everything backwards.
Haha good catch. I didn’t look at the name but don’t know if I would have read it right. I had a feeling since this is one of the days most websites are terrible. This is a good original attempt.
Don’t beat yourself up too badly, UW. Snopes had to actually report on an Onion story that suggested Cuban refugees actually clung to the wings of Air Force One because that many conservatives were believing it.
http://www.snopes.com/cuban-refugees-clinging-to-air-force-one/
Funny as conservatives consider Cuba a repressive state and welcome political refugees from there. Where liberals consider it a progressive state with a wonderful healthcare system which nobody should want to leave.
Dave, I got through about a paragraph before realizing what day it was and had a good laugh.
Of course, IJ has been publishing articles about the demise of the Independent Agent this year in favor of promoting online insurance buyers.
By the way Trump haters, Property/Casualty 360 published on 3-29-16 by Best that the Presidential Candidate most favored by the Insurance Industry was Trump. The least favored was Sanders at less than 1%. Hilliary wasn’t much higher than him.
Who else on this blog would write a six paragraph diarrhea of the keyboard than you? This is a joke article, get it?
bob
Bob is a lot smarter than you and notice that he didn’t write a goofy diatribe like you did before you finally realized that it was an April Fools day joke.
April Fools, right??
looks to me that UW takes life way too seriously, and hasn’t looked at the calendar yet today – – –
fun story. glad I’m retiring soon.
What? Marco Rubio started an insurance agency?
Ha, Ha. What day is today?
Quite Clever!
I’m hoping Donald Trump will also come forward and say “April Fools! You didn’t think I was REALLY interested in the Presidency, did you?!”…. but alas, I doubt that will happen. :\
Darn April Fools!! I was ready to buy a robot.
What are the odds that the entire Trump campaign has been an April Fool’s day joke? Seriously, what if he just held a press conference today and said, “Gotcha! I can’t believe you guys REALLY thought that I was going to have Mexico pay for a wall, ban Muslims (except the rich ones) from the US, bomb the hell out of ________, punish women for getting abortions, etc. etc.”
It would make sense, and would probably be easier to accept than the reality in this case.
VOTE NOBODY 2016!!!
louie, did you read the Property Casualty 360 enewsletter? By the way, the new CEO for Travelers Alan Schnitzer said in today’s addition that the corporate tax rate needs to be lowered or the country will continue to have companies move offshore including the insurance industry. The US has the highest corporate rate in the developed world. Thank you Obama for not helping business. Your record is intact for 7+ years.
Actually, it is Reagan’s economic model in tact for 30+ years. Epic fail! But let’s just keep doing the same thing. No, really, it will trickle down eventually.
This was absolutely brilliant and hilarious. Will the real life author please stand up?
So if a company asks your for proof of E & O insurance to update their files, you’re going to say, I don’t need E & O, I have a robot? You may be able to get rid of EPLI, But E & O? Where does the robot get their E & O from?
Sounds a lot like Aon
I was totally buying into this until I got to:
“I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if one of my employees got hurt. We are like family,” she said.
So out of concern for her employees’ safety she decided to replace them all with a robot rather than try to create a cobotic environment.”
Nicely done, Insurance Journal! :)
I wonder how he passed the licensing exams.
Disappointed to see this on Insurance Journal with links to other fake articles. Are they merging with US weekly and the National Enquirer…..anything to make people read your stuff huh?
Darn – I was going to go to the IKEA website and check out their robot selection.
The reality is that AI and Machine Learning as portrayed so well in this piece is just around the corner. We will soon experience the biggest disruption the world has ever witnessed.
Are you prone to exaggerate much? The biggest disruption in this country and possibly the world was the sub prime mortgage mess and Obama and his policies, particularly Obamacare which has lingered far too long and caused so much grief. Add that to his statement that the biggest security threat was Climate Change. Progressive Socialism practiced in Europe and now here is a mental disease with apparently no cure.
If you believe I am exaggerating you’ve got a thing coming. The global disruption caused by AI and Machine Learning will make all the things you mentioned look like a picnic, even “Progressive Socialism”.
I enjoyed this. Especially well timed since we just released our first product that basically can do all these things. It still needs a person – insurance professional – to teach it, but once you teach it, it never forgets.
One other difference, you still own the agency. Tyler Cowen, in his book Average is Over, describes the combination of chess playing computers and human teams as the best chess players in the world. The key is the partnership between the human team and the machine. I believe this is the winning future combination for independent agents.
The things that give me comfort is having high capacity computers and a top notch operating system and good employees that can work with customers on their protection needs. Automation can only go so far and the human touch is required for advice.
Agent, I agree with you that human touch will always be required. What we need to understand is that in years to come, we may need very small numbers of people to provide that human touch. Restaurant automation is big around the world – very little human touch needed or required. All this is moving with breakneck speed. Also remember that hospitality is an enormously labour intensive industry making it a good space for replacing people with AI. Just Google “automated restaurant”. I do not want to be alarmist, but I believe we should be aware of possible undesirable consequences of AI.
“…. the combination of chess playing computers and human teams as the best chess players in the world. …”
This would have been quite plausible when Cowen wrote his book way back in 2013. Things have changed rapidly; we now have Machine Learning. This means that the “team” has now become surplus to requirement. If you like Chess, follow the link in my comment: “This is a must read”
This is a must-read – if you’d like a glimpse of the very near future.
Some good news and bad news. Let us hope the transition is smooth.
“….she successfully handled one of every ten calls in the first week, and by the end of the second month, she could resolve six of ten calls. Because of this, it’s been estimated that she can put 250 million people out of a job, worldwide….”
https://medium.com/basic-income/deep-learning-is-going-to-teach-us-all-the-lesson-of-our-lives-jobs-are-for-machines-7c6442e37a49#.spz7vx1n1
Many Qs to be asked regards robotic technology.
A continuation of the loss of scribes to the printing machine, printers to the computer technology, factory workers to automation, farm workers to tractors etc etc.
Who will buy products if they don’t have an income?
What will individuals do with their ‘time’ if they cannot work?
How will the State & Corporations react to increasing civil unrest?
What are the Military making of robotics e.g. drones?
Which science, information etc will we be able to believe?
And so on ….