Giving Compass' Take:

· Alex Sun discusses the risks and changes that will come with the Age of Automation, how risk is changing as society advances, and the emerging opportunities for insurers with the internet of things.

· How will individuals determine how to participate in the new world of risk? How do individuals respond to risk in everyday life? What changes will the Age of Automation bring? 

·  Learn how the government can prepare for the Age of Automation and all the changes that come with it.

According to the famous futurist Ray Kurzweil, “we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century — it will be more like 20,000 years of progress.” We are at incredibly important moment in time — one that I believe historians will look back on as a pivotal time in the advancement of technology and in the way humans interact with it.

The world is moving quickly beyond the Age of Information, an incredibly fast-moving period marked by the rise of computing, home computers, the internet, mobile phones and streaming video, collectively placing mass quantities of information at our fingertips. Today, we stand on the precipice of the Age of Automation, a period that takes for granted the advancements in computing power and complexity that were previously the stuff of science fiction: artificial intelligence, virtual reality and a world in which virtually everything has the potential to be connected to the internet.

As we enter the Age of Automation, the nature of risk is changing, both in the world at large and within the property and casualty and collision repair industries. Insurance companies rely on historical records to underwrite risk. In many cases, there are things happening today that we have never seen before: a tightly connected world, new industries, new business models and new ways of reaching underserved people. In cases where there is insufficient data describing recent history, it’s difficult to statistically model the risks.

Read the full article about risk in the Age of Automation by Alex Sun at SmartBrief.