{"id":5337,"date":"2024-11-21T15:09:46","date_gmt":"2024-11-21T14:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rivistaeco.com\/?p=5337"},"modified":"2024-11-21T15:09:46","modified_gmt":"2024-11-21T14:09:46","slug":"opportunities-and-dangers-of-ai-at-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rivistaeco.com\/en\/2024\/11\/21\/opportunities-and-dangers-of-ai-at-university\/","title":{"rendered":"Opportunities and Dangers of AI at University"},"content":{"rendered":"

The mission of business schools is to equip students with skills that allow them to adapt to rapidly evolving sectors. Today, this mission is especially relevant with the rise of AI. New courses and projects in collaboration with companies are being developed and the academic research is delving deeper into the implications of AI. The goal is to use AI to expand knowledge while maintaining creativity and critical thinking, with particular attention given to improper uses of the technology.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Every fall, when I welcome a new class of students here at the Kellogg School of Management, I explain that our mission is not only to prepare them for the job they will get immediately after graduation but also to provide them with a foundation for success in their third, fourth, fifth job, and beyond. This is more relevant than ever now as the world around us changes rapidly.<\/span><\/p>\n

In just over two years, the explosion of generative artificial intelligence has had a radical impact on entire industries, forcing business leaders to rethink strategies, products, and processes. Those responsible for educating the next generation of corporate leaders cannot be afraid to keep pace with the times. The students entering the job market today will need structural logic and approaches to help them make decisions in evolving situations or in fields and roles that do not yet exist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Innovating the Curriculum is Essential<\/b><\/h3>\n

To help graduates succeed in a period of continuous evolution, business schools must ensure that classroom teachings remain relevant and that the most important and significant transformation topics are addressed. At Kellogg, we have revamped our curriculum, particularly with the creation of our MBAi program in 2020 (offered in collaboration with the School of Engineering), which focuses on the intersection of business and AI. We have redesigned courses through the lens of emerging technology, training graduates to understand the impact of AI on a business.<\/span><\/p>\n

The program arose from observing the failures of most AI implementation projects within companies: these failures were not due to unprepared scientists and engineers but rather to their limited integration and involvement in the company, whose goals and functioning they understood little. Business leaders did not sufficiently communicate the vision and challenges the company faced to achieve its objectives. Without collaboration between business experts and data experts, the result is often something that does not truly meet the company\u2019s needs. In other cases, the AI experts’ recommendations were simply infeasible because the company\u2019s organisational structure was incompatible with the way data was structured. The lack of dialogue between AI experts, computer scientists, engineers, and business leaders hinders real progress. In the coming years, managers who can speak both the language of technology and the language of business will serve as crucial links between the two areas, creating alignment that will advance the organisation.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Benefits of Practical Experience<\/b><\/h3>\n

Business schools must prepare students to solve problems using new technologies. To do this, our students need to experiment and gain practical experience, ideally through projects sponsored by companies.<\/span><\/p>\n

For example, at Kellogg, we launched a project sponsored by John Deere, the agricultural machinery giant headquartered in Illinois, the state where our school is located. John Deere now defines itself as a technology company: it uses AI to optimise crops, determine the amount of fertiliser to use, and analyse factors such as soil quality and recent rainfall. What impact could this technology have on increasing agricultural productivity in parts of the world that suffer from hunger? The point we want students to understand is that the potential effects of AI are much broader than they may first appear.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another project involved a large B2B tech company. In this case, students were tasked with optimising customer research using large language models (LLMs). To do so, students had to deeply and accurately understand the company\u2019s operations; otherwise, a generic algorithm would have had only marginal effects. The detailed study of the business helped students see where they could add value through AI. The entire process also enhanced their creativity, leading to a significant increase in productivity and effectiveness within the company. Continuously offering new types of learning experiences and having students work with cutting-edge tools in real-world scenarios enables them to keep pace with the rapid rate of change.<\/span><\/p>\n

Encouraging New Research<\/b><\/h3>\n

Equally important is fostering research that helps us understand the complexity of the new context. Business schools are research institutions and as such must produce new knowledge about what AI can do and the moral and ethical implications of its use. Research allows us to understand both the promises and pitfalls of emerging technologies. And it must be incorporated into teaching and then into the business world.<\/span><\/p>\n

Artificial intelligence is an inherently interdisciplinary field, involving researchers from economics, social sciences, computer science, and other fields. Faculty study topics such as AI ethics, human-machine partnerships, biases in decision-making, and more. For example, at Kellogg, several researchers conduct experiments on how to present AI concepts in ways that encourage people to use them. Getting accustomed to new tools like ChatGPT requires adopting a different mindset, so it\u2019s useful to find ways to help more people see their potential.<\/span><\/p>\n

Similarly, it is important to start thinking now about what potential problems new discoveries might pose. For example, in one of Kellogg\u2019s courses, students and faculty are already discussing what happens if a group of humans working together on a complex problem is joined by just one non-human participant. How does the entire dynamic change? This makes us reflect on how work will be conducted in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

As educational institutions, we must ask ourselves how we can train managers who understand both the potential of AI and its moral and ethical implications, enabling them to represent the perspectives of multiple stakeholders when they sit on boards and lead companies. These are big questions and big challenges.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Advantages and Disadvantages of AI at University<\/b><\/h3>\n

As with any innovation, as we experiment with new technologies, we will discover their hidden advantages and disadvantages. Within universities, the debate has rightly focused on how students use these tools in their studies. The effects are not always positive. Case study discussions, for example, are based on the assumption that students read and analyse the material and formulate their own viewpoints. If they use tools like ChatGPT to do this, the result may be lower-quality discussions with less engaged students and more superficial learning for everyone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another potential danger could arise if students rely too heavily on AI when making decisions, delegating choices to these tools that should come from their own insights and personal perceptions. As educators, we should reflect deeply on how these tools are used in classrooms to ensure they support\u2014rather than replace\u2014the critical thinking we are trying to develop in our students.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many have raised concerns about academic integrity and generative AI. We asked faculty about their approach to exams, and people have chosen different paths. Some prefer to hold in-person exams without computer assistance, while others test exam questions with ChatGPT in advance to see what generated answers might look like. Finally, others provide ChatGPT-generated exam answers and ask students to critique them.<\/span><\/p>\n

But while there are real and important downsides, we know that banning AI from the classroom is not the solution. Students know they will have to use these tools in the workforce, and they want to start using them in university classrooms in an environment where making mistakes is acceptable because they are still learning. Students and teachers can find common ground by agreeing from the outset on the boundaries for using AI tools within the course. Universities should involve the most passionate AI advocates to help shape policies and best practices for its use in the classroom. An example is the “GenAI Playbook for Teaching at Kellogg” created by one of our researchers for the benefit of colleagues.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the other hand, we cannot ignore the great advantages these tools can offer if used correctly. At Kellogg, for example, one professor has developed Kai, an AI teaching assistant much more sophisticated than a simple chatbot. Using generative AI, Kai has been trained to become an expert in the academic field of its creator, who provided it with all the information they would have given to a human assistant: syllabus, assignments, lecture transcripts, and so on. The result is an extraordinary tool that allows students to expand their learning in new ways. Since its launch last January, its popularity has continually grown: so far, it has been used by more than 400 students with overwhelmingly positive feedback.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Best of Both Worlds<\/b><\/h3>\n

Every day, I see enthusiasm for AI in both our students and our faculty, as well as for the many ways these technologies can enhance the learning and research experience. Yes, there will be issues to resolve as we figure out how to use these tools in the best way possible. But we must believe that the new era of AI can push human ingenuity even further. After all, the qualities that make us unique as human beings\u2014including creativity, collaboration, and empathy\u2014cannot be replicated by an algorithm. And if we can use technology to give ourselves more time to devote to goals that only the human heart and mind can achieve, we have a duty to keep advancing learning as much as we can along the way.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bio<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Francesca Cornelli is the Dean of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She is also a Professor of Finance and holds the Donald P. Jacobs Chair in Finance.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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