Viral Virus: Volume 7 - A.I and the Ever Complicated World

We've gone from our origin story, into a series of sequels, and are now in syndication status. Season 7 of Viral Virus presents some familiar faces and a new character. 

As usual, we will spotlight current trends, impacts on actuarial modeling, and any newly emerging implications in our post-COIVD world. 

Past episodes:https://betweenthespreadsheets.blogspot.com/search/label/viralvirus

The "Tridemic" Triple Threat

It appears that "flu season" is even harder to get through unscathed as RSV, Influenza, and COVID have teamed up in a coordinated attack. 

The CDC has a suite of dashboards and surveillance metrics for the data-inclined.

Influenza Hospitalizations, for example, have had some high peaks this flu season so far (red line) and last year (blue line).

RSV Hospitalization Rates have also been higher than in previous years following COVID:

COVID is the only one showing a different trend with LOWER hospitalization rates (so far). 

However, the earlier waves of COVID may be contributing to the current worse experience for colds and flus. 

Permanent or long-lasting immune damage could be a problematic consequence of coronavirus, similar to how HIV leads to AIDS, as discussed in a recent World Health Network brief.

"This is not speculation. Researchers have documented that repeated COVID infections are associated with measurable disruptions to immune function. Some immune cells are depleted. Others become dysregulated — unable to do their jobs properly, or backfire on the body itself in the form of autoimmune diseases. Damaged blood vessel linings and mitochondria, impaired blood flow and disturbances of digestive system bacteria can all additionally weigh on the immune system with chronic inflammation, which leads to accelerated aging. These effects can persist for months or sometimes even years, or fail to resolve due to constant reinfections. Sometimes they are due to persistent viral infection or viral remnants, chipping away at our immune resources over time."

As I writie this, my kids are both home, sick with bugs, unable to go to school. This serves as a reminder that illness is NOT JUST A HEALTH ISSUE. There are downstream impacts that bleed into many areas of life.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE.....

Over the past few months, concerns over measles outbreaks have reignited questions about vaccination policies. 

• Florida has repealed vaccine mandates. 
• The CDC under the current administration has reduced the vaccination requirements from 13 to 7, but is facing resistance from states. 

Zoonotic diseases, the ones with names like Swine Flu, Avian Flu, and Monkey Pox (which is actually transmitted via rodents) pop up and down every year, like a game of global whack-a-mole. 

Some noteworthy items in 2025 include:

1. Chikungunya is a mosquito-borne illness that usually affects travelers, but a new incidence of local origination occured in the US in 2025.
2. From birds to cows to people. In 2024, the CDC observed cows getting bird flu for the first time. This year, on April 1, CDC confirmed one human infection in a person with exposure to dairy cows in Texas. This is thought to be the first instance of likely mammal-to-human spread of HPAI A(H5N1) virus.
3. Africa has been fighting against the spread of Monkey Pox, with a significant outbreak in Sierra Leone in 2025. 

Scientists cite climate change as part of the proliferation of these types of diseases.

A.I is a  GAME CHANGER!

It is time to talk about the game-changer that has swept the globe the past few years. Artificial Intelligence, and in particular generative AI.  The growth rate is mind boggling. 

From Our World in Data:

"The chart shows that the computation used to train each AI model — shown on the vertical axis — has consistently and exponentially increased over the last few decades. From 1950 to 2010, compute doubled roughly every two years. However, since 2010, this growth has accelerated dramatically, now doubling approximately every six months, with the most compute-intensive model reaching 50 billion petaFLOP as I write this article.

To put this scale in perspective, a single high-end graphics card like the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 — widely used in AI research — running at full capacity for an entire year would complete just 1.1 million petaFLOP computations. 50 billion petaFLOP is approximately 45,455 times more than that."

The adoption and proliferation of AI puts any other virus infection rates to shame. There are ongoing concerns about the health hazards of this new technology.  

I covered how AI is changing the game for social connection in my Longevity Assistant newsletter on Linked In.

AI enables incredible creative powers: it can fold proteins, can design bacteria, and now viral design is on its resume.

"Scientists have for the first time ever successfully used artificial intelligence (AI) to redesign functional viruses. This has resulted in previously unknown virus variants that specialize in bacteria, known as phages. Some of the properties of these AI viruses are superior to those of previously known phages. In the experiment, the scientists did not just alter individual DNA segments, but the entire genetic material of the virus was rewritten and redesigned."

It is potentially probing its use in drug design, including combating COVID. 

Just as COVID was a catalyst for change and forever shifted several key areas of the world, Artificial Intelligence is doing the same.  The world as we know it is evolving and evolving fast.

In addition to health, AI is hitting every aspect of society.  I'll hit the high notes without diving too deep because that is covered elsewhere by others.

• Education - replacing Google, and writing papers, AI is changing the way we learn, how we think, and what is possible in education.
• Work - corporations are lusting after efficiency gains, hoping to produce scale and leaner workflows, some jobs are eliminated, others are rapidly changing. The creative arts are also under threat, with perhaps some opportunity to remove frictions that would otherwise exist.
• Decision Making -  AI is at the highest levels of corporate and governmental decisions.  Its ability to digest and synthesize data is extremely useful. Similar to learning, the question will be to what extent we become dependent on it.

ACTUARIAL IMPLICATIONS

Every good actuary understands the idea of compounding effects. When you bring a new ingredient to the mix, the result isn't always additive; it can be multiplicative, or even exponential.  In a "tridemic" world, what is the best way to think about this increased exposure and morbidity and mortality risk?

Furthermore, what is on the horizon with opportunity?  How might the growth in AI change drug discovery in a way that radically changes the healthspan of humans?

For example, consider how Eli Lilly used AI to accelerate the manufacturing of GLP-1 drugs.

The barrier to creating applications based on required coding knowledge is coming down.  What new types of modeling could be pursued as a result?   I would love to see a new wave of actuarial innovations using AI as a catalyst for positive change.

The SOA currently has an AI bulletin series, which should be required reading - make sure that our profession will bring Actuarial Intelligence to Artificial Intelligence!

This only scratches the surface.  It is a wild time to be alive.