Rise of the machines: AI begins to tackle credit risk

Self-taught technology could push humans aside from some – or all – of the underwriting process

Artificial intelligence has been a trope of science fiction for decades. From the unsettling and double-crossing HAL in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey to the oppressive robots enslaving humanity in The Matrix and The Terminator, the concept of sentient machines outsmarting and overthrowing their creators has long permeated popular culture.

If these movies are anything to go by, credit risk managers should be worried.

Machine learning, a subset of AI that allows computers to answer simple