artificial intelligence

Who’s Minding the Bots?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is being implemented in nearly all sectors of the economy at an increasing rate. A 2019 survey by Gartner showed that 37 percent of organizations had already implemented AI in some form. When it comes to integrating AI into your company, what are the risks? What are the opportunities? On March 12, 2021, the Industry Relations and Corporate Governance Committee of the CFA Society Toronto convened a panel of experts to look at how effectively a company’s corporate governance can provide proper oversight and avoid mistakes. In other words, “who and how we will mind the bots.” […]

Managing Artificial Intelligence Risk

“The potential consequences of artificial intelligence are profound,” said Daniel Wagner, founder and CEO, Country Risk Solutions. “We’re just at the beginning of the runway. How resources are utilized will change significantly.” AI will affect all areas of life, and it is possible new forms of digital authoritarianism may arise. Wagner was one of two speakers at a webinar titled “Artificial Intelligence: Running the Race and Managing the Risks,” sponsored by the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP) on October 16, 2018. Wagner and Keith Furst co-authored the new book AI Supremacy: Winning in the Era of Machine Learning. His presentation summarized […]

AI Supremacy?

“There is definitely a race for AI going on,” said Keith Furst, Managing Director, Data Derivatives. “You might wonder, is there any hope of catching up if you are not already in the race?” He was one of two speakers at a webinar titled “Artificial Intelligence: Running the Race and Managing the Risks,” sponsored by the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP) on October 16, 2018. Furst and Daniel Wagner co-authored the new book AI Supremacy: Winning in the Era of Machine Learning. At the outset, Furst described the process of “cognification” that has been transforming our world. “As everything becomes digitized, […]

Topology Can Streamline Modelling

How can software systematize and optimize the routine tasks in building financial risk models? “We use topology to inform feature selection, and then we examine a range of models,” said Mukund Ramachandran, Data Scientist at Ayasdi. He was the third of three panellists at the October 27, 2015, webinar on Effective Risk Models Using Machine Intelligence sponsored by the Global Association of Risk Professionals. In the course of evaluating potential models, several statistical tests are applied. “Machine intelligence considers the entire high dimensional space jointly,” he said. Machine learning is capable of applying hundreds of algorithms and different combinations, “but […]

Machine Intelligence + Business Intuition

Given the exponential growth in data complexity, how can you, the risk manager, quickly determine the most salient economic factors to include in calculating a bank’s risk exposure? Nowadays, modelling risk is all about “speed, accuracy, and defensibility,” said Patrick Rogers, Head of Marketing at the software company Ayasdi. Risk models must be developed “in a relatively short time window and must be statistically valid.” Since risk models must be defensible to business owners and industry regulators, and simple to explain, the ordinary “black box” machine learning would fall flat, Rogers said. He was the second of three panellists at […]

“Tons of Models, Tons of Variables”

With so many economic variables, and such a wide choice of parameters, do you feel overwhelmed by the task of producing the best financial model possible? Is there a systematic approach to exploring models? “Ever since the 2008 financial crisis, there’s been a focus on stress testing,” which requires robust financial models, said Roderick Powell, Director of Market and Treasury Risk at the consulting company KPMG. He was the first of three panellists at the October 27, 2015, webinar on Effective Risk Models Using Machine Intelligence sponsored by the Global Association of Risk Professionals. “Building those models is a time-consuming, […]

Better Living Through Topology

“It gets downright annoying when I’m just trying to check my e-mail but I get prompted to answer three security questions,” said Alexis Johnson, voicing a concern shared by many in the audience when fraud detection is so overblown it obstructs ordinary use of software. Johnson, Director of Technical Sales at the big data analytics firm Ayasdi, was the second of two presenters at a webinar on the topic “The Fraud Arms Race” sponsored by the Global Association of Risk Professionals on April 21, 2015. When it comes to detecting fraud in big data, “data complexity, not volume, is the […]