The Boston-based insurer has joined MIT’s Quest for Intelligence as Visionary member
A new $25 million, five-year collaboration will see MIT and Liberty Mutual Insurance join forces to tackle the many issues and opportunities surrounding the rise, research, and development of Artificial Intelligence. Spearheaded by MIT’s Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing through the Quest for Intelligence, the collaboration will span MIT’s five different schools ensuring to draw a wide swath of talent from many disciplines.
Liberty Mutual Chairman and CEO David Long and MIT President L. Rafael Reif officially launched the new collaboration during a meeting at MIT on May 1st, 2019.
“We are excited to embark on this project with MIT and look forward to leveraging their leading AI research to identify, develop, and ultimately operationalize several transformational AI-enabled solutions,” expressed Mr. Long in his remarks during the meeting. “Through this collaboration we intend to challenge the insurance industry status quo and be at the forefront of AI breakthroughs.”
“With the Quest, MIT is working to accelerate progress on techniques and technologies that can help countless industries seize the transformative opportunities of AI. Our collaboration with Liberty Mutual will advance research in an interdisciplinary, problem-focused way that will feel very familiar to our community,” says Reif.
The collaboration already has begun to discuss potential research topics involving the development of Artificial Intelligence, including efforts involved in making algorithms transparent to customers and regulators, employing computer vision to improve traffic and driving safety and road conditions, and safeguards to protect sensitive information and personal data. The creation of computer language to better understand and analyze insurance claims in order to improve the claims process also has been discussed.
“AI tools and technologies are reshaping industry, and insurance is no exception,” says Antonio Torralba, director of The Quest and a professor of computer science and electrical engineering. “We look forward to working with Liberty Mutual to develop methods to make AI systems fair, secure, transparent and more risk-aware.”
“We are excited to be working with Liberty Mutual and hope that this represents the first of many such collaborations that will help us advance the science of machine learning and natural intelligence,” says Michael Sipser, dean of the MIT School of Science and the Donner Professor of Mathematics.
