Re/insurance industry body the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) has argued that the profession should engage with the public to reach a consensus on what constitute a responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) and data.
The recommendation follows a report for the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, which examined the potential uses of AI across the re/insurance sector, as well as the arguments for and against such applications.
The report also encouraged re/insurers to consider whether tighter controls need to be put in place regarding the use of personal characteristics in pricing processing data from social media platforms, among other issues.
For example, the CII agreed with the proposal that society should help to decide what constitutes acceptable discrimination, given that AI could allow insurers to identify more high risk characteristics and potentially leave more people facing unaffordable premiums.
“The report rightly identifies common ground on what constitutes an ethical use of AI is required and we are pleased the authors state the Chartered Insurance Institute’s Digital Companion to their Code of Ethics is a step in the right direction,” said Keith Richards, Managing Director at the CII.
“We agree the profession needs to involve the wider public in the debate about how insurers should be able to nudge policyholders using AI, and when it might be unacceptable for insurers to use AI to infer characteristics about their customers,” he added.
