Fears over ability to deal with emerging risks as AI shoots up AXA ranking

Risks from artificial intelligence (AI) and big data have shot up the ranking in AXA’s latest Future Risks Report to number four. However, climate change, cyber and security and geopolitical instability remain the biggest concerns. The annual survey also reveals that experts are pessimistic about the public authorities’ preparedness for future shocks, but there is growing belief in the important role that insurance can play in mitigating such risks. The AXA Future Risks Report 2023: A world in polycrisis is based on a survey of 3,500 experts from 50 countries and a representative sample of 20,000 members of the general population in 15 countries. The annual study measures and ranks perceptions of evolving and rising risks in partnership with the IPSOS polling institute. The data is then analysed by AXA’s experts. This year’s poll finds that risks associated with AI and big data have risen furthest in the experts’ ranking, from 14th place last year to fourth place. Most of the experts (64%) and the public (70%) even believe that AI research should be halted. Pandemic risk was the significant faller in the experts’ ranking, down from fifth last year to ninth. The risk topped the expert’s list in 2020. But the general public have not moved on from worrying about pandemic risk – they still rank it second, with concern running highest in the Africa and Asia regions, AXA noted. Climate change is once again rated as the number one emerging risk among both experts and the public. But for the first time, this risk is ranked first in every region of the world, including by the public. For the sixth year running, cybersecurity risks are on the experts’ podium, in second place from third last year, and have made it into the top three for the general population. Geopolitical instability has swapped place with cyber in the experts ranking, moving from second to third. The survey also shows that both experts and the general population feel more vulnerability than a few years ago. Some 84% of experts feel more vulnerable than they did five years ago at national level, compared with 76% in 2020, and 73% at local level, compared with 64% in 2020. This trend is also apparent in the general population, where feelings of vulnerability have increased by 7% in three years at both national and local levels. And the experts aren’t confident in authorities’ preparedness and ability to respond to emerging risks. Only 7% of experts think authorities are prepared for AI risk, for example. This is the lowest of all the risks in the survey. Just 15% think authorities are prepared for the emergence of climate change – and in Europe and America, this figure is as low as 10% and 9% respectively. However, AXA said that in other parts of the survey it is possible to detect cautiously rising optimism. Trust has risen compared to last year in the ability of all key actors – such as scientists, companies, NGOs, armies, governments, or international organisations – to handle a future crisis. Scientists are most trusted, according to 84% of experts and 70% of the general population. The level of confidence in companies is also growing both among experts at 72%, up 8% from 20202, and the general population, rising 4% to 49%. At the same time, 93% of experts and 74% of the general population believe that the role of insurers in limiting the impact of future risks is important or very important, compared with 89% and 69% last year. AXA CEO Thomas Buberl said the tenth edition of the Future Risks Report highlights a world in polycrisis. “The last three years have been impacted by the global pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the worsening consequences of global warming... Now we have to add rising risks linked to artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, as well as an increasingly unstable geopolitical framework,” continued Buberl. “Despite the scale of the challenges, we do not want to see the future as a risk. To achieve this, we need to build on the general population’s growing confidence in scientists – and therefore in progress and science – and in businesses, particularly insurance, which three-quarters of those questioned considered to be capable of limiting the impact of future risks,” he added.

Fears over ability to deal with emerging risks as AI shoots up AXA ranking

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