Prioritizing the responsible use of artificial intelligence allows the insurance industry to navigate complexities, mitigate risks and unlock potential for innovation and growth. AI's rapid transformation of the insurance landscape offers immense opportunities and significant risks, particularly in underwriting, claims processing and customer service.

Despite global efforts to harmonize AI governance, such as those advanced by organizations like the UN, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Group of 20, the Group of 7 and platforms like the World Economic Forum’s AI Governance Alliance, it is challenging to move forward with the rapidly-evolving technology when governance is struggling to keep up. This means businesses have a key role to play by applying a strong code of ethics to ensure there is the necessary level of responsibility and accountability.

Generative AI is drawing ever wider circles across science, industry, public services and our daily lives. At the same time, it’s still a rapidly evolving technology. This piece rounds up some of the World Economic Forum’s research in these areas, from governing genAI to how it’s transforming areas such as education, health, and finance.

 AI: A Tectonic Shift in Human Society

The first time most people could communicate with a computer that responded like a real person was in 2022 when OpenAI publicly launched ChatGPT. Just two months later, the app set the record for the fastest-growing user base with 100 million monthly active users. Since then, advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) as a technology have been stunning. Most of the AIs all around us remain out of sight. AIs manage energy distribution across the country. In the world of finance, about 70% of stock trading volume is initiated through algorithmic trading, another form of AI. “I would say that AI is part of the human system,” said Martin Hilbert a professor of communication in the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis.

Hilbert is among the many social scientists across Letters and Science who study AI to answer questions about people and society and to develop technologies that may drive our future. This work touches nearly every part of daily life, from health to education to the way we communicate with each other. Their work shows that at this point in history, AI and human society are inextricably intertwined.

One step forward, two steps back: Why Artificial Intelligence is currently mainly predicting the past

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is celebrated by many as a technology of the future; however, it predominantly looks to the past. This blog post explores why AI systems often reproduce old patterns instead of developing progressive solutions. What role do historical data play in the predictions and decisions made by AI? How do existing inequalities and the marginalization of certain groups in our society get exacerbated by AI systems, and what does this mean for social justice?