Artificial intelligence begins to replace administrative

"Some of those works will simply succumb to the rise of robots," say the experts

  With the cars driving alone on the Western motorways and some robots carrying out mechanical work worthy of the Ford assembly line, the next step for the replacement of human workers with machines has begun to be perfected in Japan. The insurance company Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance has announced that during the month of January will be dispensed with 34 administrative so that their tasks are developed by IBM Watson Explorer, a project based on artificial intelligence.

The IBM program will scan hospital records and other documents to determine insurance payments, bills for injuries, patient medical records and procedures administered, according to a statement from the Japanese company. The idea is that automating the research and data collection processes will help the remaining human workers concentrate on a faster final payment and improve productivity by 30%, according to the company.

  However, economic profitability appears in the background. The insurance company spent 200 million yen (1.63 million euros) on installing the artificial intelligence system and will need 122,000 euros for maintenance, according to the Japanese newspaper The Mainichi. As a result, you will save approximately one million euros per year, so that the investment will have balanced the expenses before the end of 2018.

The process has not surprised in a leading technology country that had seen examples abroad such as the Israeli company Lemonade, which had replaced 'brokers' and paperwork with 'bots' (routine programs that create indexes) and machines with the capacity to to learn. The Wall Street Journal had already pointed out that in the United States financial companies are already resorting to artificial intelligence to handle the overload of bureaucracy.

In the press dedicated to technology, the possibility had also been discussed. According to Harvard Business Review, most of the tasks in companies could be developed by machines or programs because they are "composed of a work by can be coded with a step pattern and decisions can be made with a clear database" . In the text signed by experts Julia Kirby and Thomas H. Davenport, they said: "Almost all jobs have important elements that - for the foreseeable future - will not be able to be controlled by computers. And yet, we have to admit that some of those jobs with some kind of knowledge will simply succumb to the rise of robots. "