Today, many chess programs are widely available which could replicate the feat. Apart from the puncturing of human arrogance, it was one of the moments that heralded the immense contribution of technology was going to make to human endeavour in the ensuing years.
In 1997, the whole internet experience was still more science fiction than science fact for many of us and even email seemed like the final frontier. Mobile computing via phone was years away and tablets were something you still swallowed with water.
Yet here we are where the idea of working ‘offline’ is now almost inconceivable. Modern mortgage business, in our highly structured and compliant world, would be totally unwieldly without the technology to drive the process.
However, while many lenders have adopted a technology reliant underwriting stance in the aftermath of the credit crunch and the subsequent compliance overlay, the importance of lenders being able to see beyond the credit score and understand the individual story has seen a renaissance of ‘old fashioned’ underwriting where more decisions are based on a human set of eyes, rather than a computer analysis. With the rise of specialist lending over the past few years, this has been a hugely important factor in ensuring that clients who have been turned away from the high street have found a home with first class lenders prepared to look beyond the box ticking.
However, I am nothing if not adaptable. Technology is already playing a huge role in Brightstar’s business and with the advent of what I like to call next generation sourcing technology, we are adopting a strategy to further help our intermediaries under our marketing tagline ‘Made Easy’, where we are actively breaking down any barriers between us and our introducers, by helping to simplify the whole process. One of those initiatives is to provide a technology platform that enables introducers to enter their clients’ information and be able to simply and easily drill down to find the most relevant lenders to help their clients.
In doing this, we are taking the strengths of technology for doing the heavy criteria based filtering work needed to arrive at potential solutions and then engaging our years of human experience at Brightstar’s head office to ensure that the solutions are really practical.
Marrying the advantages of technology and its ability to do the heavy lifting by slogging through the multitude of criteria but allying it to the experience of the human practitioners is in my opinion, an unbeatable combination to ensure that our introducers can demonstrate they have done a thorough review of the market and have the data to back up the decision they make to show their clients.
Gary Kasparov was not defeated because computers are ‘better’ than humans at chess. Computers are just better suited to analysing multiple choices more quickly than a human being. However abstract concepts such as assessing a client’s circumstances will (at this time!) remain a human ability. I believe that as an industry, we need to use every facility we have to create the best outcomes for advisers and their clients and this joining of technology and human being is the best we have to offer.
