A Cautionary Note on Technology
It is easy to see that these new technologies offer immense promise for the industries across
the globe. While AI is still in its infancy, McKinsey Global Institute Research estimates that AI
could deliver additional economic output of $13 trillion a year by the year 2030.
But there are perils - and consequences - as well. According to Kinsey, the most visible ones
include "privacy violations, discrimination, accidents, and manipulation of political systems.
More concerning still are the consequences not yet known or experienced. Disastrous
repercussions—including the loss of human life, if an AI medical algorithm goes wrong, or the
compromise of national security, if an adversary feeds disinformation to a military AI system—
are possible, and so are significant challenges for organizations, from reputational damage
and revenue losses to regulatory backlash, criminal investigation, and diminished public
trust."
While many innovations in today's world can be considered a "two-edge sword", most risk
managers argue that the benefits of using these newer technologies far outweigh the
uncertainties. But they also understand that companies need to develop their own action
plans to ensure that these technology risks do not become incidents to cripple their own
operations.
The New Risk Management
Risk, whether it comes in the form of a white swan, grey swan, or black swan, abounds in the
marketplace. And the pace of change and transformation is not slowing down.
It is the ability of today's companies - across all industries - to anticipate, weigh, and balance
those risks. In that way, they can help create opportunities for innovation and growth and a
competitive edge.
Today's new technologies can help. Are you positioned to leverage them to your own
advantage?
"With cognitive analytics, fraud detection models can become more robust and accurate. If a
cognitive system kicks out something that it determines as potential fraud and a human
determines it's not fraud because of X, Y, and Z, the computer learns from those human
insights, and next time it won't send a similar detection your way. The computer
is getting smarter and smarter. That's a huge game changer."
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