The rate of change is bigger and faster than ever before. Generative AI tools like ChatGPT are releasing their 10x, 50x, 100x more powerful versions in a matter of months. With the pace of change of this magnitude, disruption is inevitable. This disruption impacts us all including the workforce.

Harness AI to enhance learning

With the advent of disruptive technologies that have changed the business-scape, AI has the potential to have a transformative impact on education. Institutions are integrating AI to personalise the learning journey, adapting to the individual learner’s pace and style.

AI-driven simulations and case studies can enable students to experience complex business scenarios, enhancing their problem-solving skills. Conversational AI, powered by Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Natural Language Generation (NLG), can interact with the students 24/7 either through voice or through chatbots. Gamification of the content powered by AI and VR can provide an exciting playground for the students where they actively engage with the content and take quick decisions to generate scores through a healthy competition with fellow students across the globe. The Virtual Reality (VR) platforms provide an immersive experience to the students where they can attend the board meetings, negotiate with the stakeholders, interact with the customers and address the operational challenges well before they set their foot in the real world.

Potential Risks

The risks of such disruptions have their impact on education — as reliance on algorithm-driven solutions that may overlook unique educational needs.

A significant challenge is ensuring AI doesn’t perpetuate biases. For example, if AI tools are fed historical data that contains biases, these can be unwittingly replicated. As educators, there is a need to emphasise critical thinking and ethical considerations in using AI, ensuring students are aware of these pitfalls. Last but not the least, students should not be over-dependent on LLMs and code generation platforms and should nurture their natural intelligence than relying heavily on artificial intelligence.

Ethical implications

B-schools need to integrate the ethical dimensions of AI into the curriculum. For example, B-schools use case studies on AI-driven hiring processes to discuss biases in AI algorithms. Students engage in projects where they must evaluate the ethical implications of AI deployments in business, fostering an understanding of AI’s societal impact.

Striking a balance

To balance creativity and AI, B-schools may encourage projects where students use AI as a tool to enhance creative solutions. For instance, in a marketing course, students might use AI to analyse consumer data, but the insights for a campaign and the design is a function of human-centred creativity. This approach ensures that while AI provides insightful data, the human element of creativity is retained.

A tool for augmentation not replacement

B-schools should continue to focus on the fundamentals — provide students an orientation on ‘learning-to-learn’ and to be a continuous learner.

Students also learn how what users see or interact on the internet determines what they are fed with. For example, if one is used to viewing cricket, the content that he/she will be fed with will be to do with cricket based on past behaviour — students are made to understand this phenomenon to guard against unintended bias.

B-schools need to make students understand that AI will continue to remain dependent on existing data, while humans have the power of imagination. Ability to connect the dots across multiple disciplines and humane values like empathy is what will keep a professional employable going forward.

Tomorrow’s successful institutions will be those who can facilitate the process of ‘discovery’ in their learners; who can inculcate in their graduates a responsibility towards self, environment, and society; who can combine the apparent contradictions of ‘professional’ skills with a ‘multi-disciplinary’ foundation. Influential management consultant Peter Drucker had said, “Management is a Liberal Art” and in today’s context, this statement has become more relevant than ever before.

Challenges of Execution

Crafting a pedagogy which considers — Differing learning styles and intellectual capabilities of individual students; Learning is an individualised phenomenon, which means the process must induce self-learning through peers, group-based inquiries and introspection; The process and outcomes of learning need to be experiential, promoting reflection, creative thinking with self-accountability

While selecting the pedagogic interventions, one needs to recognize that management is partly a science and also an art with potential for contradictory responses. To quote Henry Mintzberg, “Management is, above all, a practice where art, science and craft meet”

(The writer is Director, JAGSoM)

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