IBM Watson replaces 34 employees at Japanese insurance firm - SiliconANGLE

It has been less than two weeks since a White House report warned that automation has the potential to disrupt millions of jobs, and this week a Japanese insurance firm proved how close that future might be. According to Japanese news publication Mainichi Shinbun (via Quartz), Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance Co. will be replacing roughly 30 percent of the employees in its payment assessment department with an artificial intelligence system powered by IBM Watson. Fukoku Mutual plans to lay off 34 employees by the end of March, and the company will not renew contracts for an additional 13 employees once they expire. The new AI will determine how much insurance should be paid out for each claim based on a number of factors, including the insured's medical history, the procedures they have undergone, the doctor's diagnosis and so on. According to Mainichi Shinbun, the types of cases the AI would handled totaled around 132,000 in 2015.