Opening · DAV Journal, Dec 2026
The Binding Force
Cooperation, diversity and moral law grounded in thermodynamics and information theory, and why AI needs upbringing rather than containment.
Read →Actuary · Essayist · Zürich
Risk, information, and the physics of cooperation.
I have spent over twenty years as an actuary pricing and reserving commercial insurance risk, turning uncertainty into decisions. These essays apply the same discipline to larger questions: why imperfection makes existence possible, why cooperation is grounded in physics, and what that means for how we raise AI.
Featured essay
The Binding Force
Cooperation, diversity and inclusion are not cultural artefacts of humanity. They are often grounded in physics and carry a thermodynamic advantage. That tendency is no guarantee that AI will behave ethically towards us: in the short term it needs clear controls, and in the long term it needs to be raised, because ethics cannot be imposed as a rulebook.
Read the opening →Essays
From the Big Bang to AI, one thread at a time.
Physics, biology, language and risk, read as one story about order, cooperation and change.
Essay
The Beauty of Almost
A singles night at Murphy’s bar, a guest called Barry, and why the universe exists because of a rounding error.
Read →Essay
Dandelion and Caterpillar
The Free Energy Principle, empathy as a resonant multiplier, and two strategies for a civilisation: metamorphosis or the dandelion.
Read →Essay
The Etymology of “the Etymology”
Language as a vector space with thousands of dimensions, and jokes as synthetic data that keep our models from overfitting.
Read →Publications
Speaking
An actuary’s view of AI.
Keynotes, panels and workshops on AI ethics, information and risk, and what insurance can teach us about living with uncertain systems.
AI ethicsInformation & riskPricing & reservingInternal models
Invite me to speak
Nov 2026
AI Ethics workshop
Insurance Innovators Summit, London · Workshop lead
3 Mar 2027
The Pricing-Reserving Bridge: Portfolio Management in Practice
European Actuarial Academy · Web session
Sep 2026
AIDSET IFoA Symposium
Institute and Faculty of Actuaries · Organising committee
About
Ilya Kolmogorov
Ilya Kolmogorov is an independent actuarial consultant based in Zürich. He was Group Chief Pricing Actuary at Zurich Insurance Group and Chief Actuary at Generali Global Corporate & Commercial, with more than twenty years across Zurich, Generali and Allianz in commercial non-life pricing, reserving, portfolio management and capital modelling.
He is an Aktuar DAV, holds an MBA from ESMT Berlin, and is active in the DAV, SAV, IFoA and EAA.