Description: Description of the vast variety of predictive analytics topics covered by the Forecasting & Futurism section and introduction to the July 2015 issue of the newsletter.

Description: Short descriptions of the various articles in the June issue.

Description: Alternative sources of learning available for free or at low cost if you wish to round out your F&F education about machine learning, artificial neural networks, genetic algorithms and the millennia of biological advances we draw from when we use these techniques.

Description: The editor of the newsletter provides a running list of articles included in the issue highlighting such topics as the applicability genetic algorithms, the power of group dynamics, judgmental forecasting, improvement in mortality and complexity science.

Description: A first look, and actuarial review of an electronic book for actuaries who wish to learn Excel beyond the basics.

Description: Summary of the first annual predictive analytics (PA) symposium specifically targeted to help actuaries get into PA & to take it to the next level of expertise.

Description: Review of an excellent new guide to passing actuarial exams. It was written by Roy Ju, who became an FSA while still a Junior in university.

Description: Actuaries of the future have to embrace the ideas and technologies that lie ahead.

Description: In An Introduction to Incremental Learning, by Qiang Wu and I describe how machine learning is a natural enhancement to predictive analytics through its many useful tools to derive meaning from a lot of otherwise unusable data such as handwriting. Again, there are formulas involved; but we have tried to keep them understandable to the actuary who isn’t already familiar with stochastic gradient descent, perceptrons, and principal component analysis. Incremental learning can help you refine the estimations you derive from more traditional actuarial methods.

Description: Each month in the media we learn of another set of jobs being automated into oblivion or replaced by disruptive technologies. We see taxi drivers replaced by Uber and Lyft now, and soon by self-driving cars. An Oxford University study of 702 occupations showed insurance underwriters in 698th place, with a 99% probability of computerization. They were safer for obsolescence by automation than only four occupations such as hand sewers and telemarketers.