AI is taking over the workplace in a Japanese Insurance company, with 34 employees being replaced by IBM’s Watson Explorer AI. And closer to home NHS is trialling artificial intelligence as an alternative to the 111 helpline, and bosses have said AI is the next frontier for online retail.
Luddites or Liberation?
Luddites may scream, "save our jobs". But if we compare AI with the advent of automatic washing machines, we realise automation brings liberation.
I remember Mondays were wash days, where my Mother washed, and ironed the whole day, what a waste of time.
What are we going to do following liberation? Looking at the world, there are lots of opportunities that need sorting . . . like economic, educational, political and environmental reforms.
Alternatively, we could pull the electric plug and bring out the dolly tub and get scrubbing.
A company in Japan is making 34 employees redundant in order to replace them with IBM’s Watson Explorer AI. More than 30 employees are being laid off and replaced with an artificial intelligence system that can calculate payouts to policyholders. Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance believes it will increase productivity by 30 per cent and see a return on its investment in less than two years. The firm said it would save about 140m yen (£1m) a year after the 200m yen (£1.4m) AI system is installed this month. According to the tech firm that created the Watson Explorer, the artificial intelligence system has “cognitive technology that can think like a human”.
