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Lemonade's tweet causes uproar over its use of AI

The insurer's error comes as artificial intelligence faces criticism from those who say it’s subject to biases.

By Max Reyes | May 27, 2021 at 11:00 AM
“There was a sizable discussion on Twitter around a poorly worded tweet of ours (mostly the term ‘non-verbal cues’), which led to confusion as to how we use customer videos to process claims. There were also questions about whether we use approaches like emotion recognition (we don’t), and whether AI is used to automatically decline claims (never!),” said Lemonade in a May 26 blog post. (Photo: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) — Lemonade, an internet-based insurer, said that it doesn’t use artificial intelligence to deny claims or coverage based on a person’s characteristics after a “poorly worded tweet” drew heated criticism online.

Clients who submit claims are asked to make videos explaining what happened. In its tweet, the New York-based company said those recordings are analyzed for fraud by artificial intelligence (AI) to “pick up non-verbal cues that traditional insurers can’t.” That led to an outpouring of tweets accusing the company of discrimination based on race and other traits.

 

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