By Preeti Vasishtha
I was attending an actuarial conference where the Academy had a booth in the exhibit hall. The little blue books seemed to fly off our booth table as quickly as we could put them out. The little blue book, of course, is the Code of Professional Conduct. Many of the actuaries who took a copy already had one. They wanted another to keep handy, they said.
Just in case.
The Code sets out some of the profession’s most fundamental principles: honesty, integrity, competence, and accountability. It also defines an actuary’s professional responsibility—to the public, to employers and clients, and to the actuarial profession itself.
Although actuaries may not check the Code every day, its principles should always be top of mind. And when the answer isn’t obvious or a difficult judgment has to be made, the Code provides a foundation for deciding what to do. For 25 years, those principles have guided the profession even as the work itself has changed.
And a lot has changed in those 25 years. The profession has evolved, technology has transformed how actuaries work, and the amount of information available today would have been difficult to imagine then—and that pace of change has only accelerated.
Artificial intelligence (AI) may be the most significant change yet. Twenty-five years ago, an actuary’s tools were slower but more visible. A calculation ran on a machine that an actuary could see, and an assumption sat in a spreadsheet the actuary had built. Today, an actuary might receive an answer from an AI model within seconds—without being able to see how that answer was reached.
That invisibility makes AI feel different from earlier tools. We’re already seeing AI change how actuaries work, from writing code and analyzing data to generating recommendations. Some of this work once took days but now takes minutes. As AI takes on increasingly complex tasks, it also raises questions about what remains the responsibility of the actuary.
The answer is not simply what AI can or cannot do. It is the judgment required to determine whether the work is sound, whether its limitations are understood, and whether the result is something the actuary can stand behind.
That judgment has always been part of actuarial work. The tools may change, but actuaries still have to decide how to approach a problem, what assumptions and methods to use, and when the work needs a closer look. Sometimes the hardest part is not finding an answer. It is recognizing when an answer needs to be questioned.
AI does not eliminate that responsibility. If anything, increasingly capable tools may make it more important. A tool can identify a pattern, write a piece of code, or make a recommendation. It can produce an answer in seconds. That can be useful. But it can also make it tempting to move on before asking whether the answer is right. The actuary still has to question it, understand what went into it, and decide whether it is appropriate to use.
That is the enduring value of the Code. It doesn’t give actuaries an answer for every situation. It gives them a way to think through difficult situations—and reminds them that the decisions they make carry responsibility.
The articles in this issue look back at the Code’s 25-year history and its role in a profession that has changed considerably. They also look ahead, examining the human role in an increasingly AI-enabled workplace and what AI agents could mean for actuarial practice. Along the way, they explore some of the same questions raised here about professional judgment and responsibility.
And that’s what I saw at our booth that day. Those actuaries weren’t taking another copy of the little blue book because they expected to refer to it every day.
They wanted it close because they knew there might come a moment when they would need it.
Just in case.
Preeti Vasishtha is editor-in-chief, Contingencies, and the Academy’s director of content.