A Japanese Insurance Company Replaced Some Of Its Staff With AI

They say that in the next few decades, humans could end up marrying robots, and it has also been predicted that robots could eventually replace the jobs that were once done by humans. This has already been happening in the manufacturing sector where robots are faster, more accurate, and don’t require rest.

However it seems that for employees at a Japanese insurance company, this was probably unexpected. According to a report from Japan’s Mainichi (via BBC), 34 employees at a local insurance company have had their jobs replaced by AI. The company, Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance, believes that this will boost productivity by as much as 30%. It is also expected to result in the savings of salaries of about $1.2 million a year.

The AI is said to be based on IBM Japan’s Watson, which IBM boasts is cognitive technology that can think like a human. IBM is also claiming that the AI will be able to “analyze and interpret all of your data, including unstructured text, images, audio and video”, which Fukoku plans on using to read documents like medical certificates, data on surgeries, hospital stays, and so on to determine payouts.

While Fukoku might be the first to adopt the technology, at least as far as insurance companies are concerned, the report from Mainichi claims that at least three other Japanese insurance companies are expected to adopt the technology eventually as well.

Tyler Lee
Categories: General, Robots
Tags: AI (Artificial Intelligence), Japan