Regulators strive to catch up as technology evolves

It will take time for regulatory agencies to build up the talent and knowledge needed to monitor evolving artificial intelligence technologies, observers say.

Many regulatory offices don’t have the expertise to assess and implement artificial intelligence regulations, said Sharad Sachdev, AI and analytics lead for Accenture PLC’s Insurance practice.

“How do you monitor the bias in a data set if the talent that’s sitting on the monitoring side doesn’t understand it?” said Mr. Sachdev.

“It’s important to recognize there’s going to be a little bit of lag by the time talent comes up to speed on the regulatory side,” he said, adding that this is a resource gap that affects industry in general, not just regulatory agencies.

Even commercial companies are having difficulty hiring artificial intelligence resources, said Mark Radcliffe, a partner at East Palo Alto, California-based DLA Piper U.S. LLP.

“Data scientists are very expensive and it’s difficult for the government sector to compete in this area,” Mr. Radcliffe said.

Insurance regulators are in the process of building the appropriate skill sets to regulate artificial intelligence, said Stephen Clarke, vice president of government relations for Jersey City, New Jersey-based Verisk Analytics Inc.

“It’s a new field, and many of the colleges and universities are for the first time having some focus on data science and data development programs,” Mr. Clarke said.