Helpful for: MBA Applicants
Read Time: 10 minutes
Quick Facts:
An increasing amount of American companies are beginning to model technological devices to reflect the analytical wirings of the human brain. This business trend is influencing industry leaders to require MBA students to study the framework AI offers. Josh Tyler, executive vice president of engineering at Course Hero, comments that the more depth that goes into learning about AI, the more prepared we will be for the future.
AI currently powers recommendation engines on sites such as Amazon and Netflix, adding to a more personalized and functional user experience, and it has even allowed for the achievement of self-driving cars! Now that we’re drooling over the possibility of telepathic food delivery, let’s get back on track by focusing on the role AI will play on the business school curriculum.
You may be questioning how realistic the AI courses really are. Ilana sheds some light by asking Simon Johnson, professor of entrepreneurship at MIT what he thinks:
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One way to gauge the sophistication of a b-school course is to check if it discusses instances when the potential of AI has been exaggerated. Johnson, who teaches a course about the business of AI and robotics, says it's important for MBA students to learn how to tell the difference between circumstances where AI can help a business and those where it won't have a significant impact. He also says it's ideal when a course includes multiple guest speakers who are using AI in their businesses. These speakers may be able to provide more current information about AI than what's available in written case studies. "I call them live case studies or expert witnesses – people who come and don't lecture to you, but they're willing to engage and to be a living case study in your classroom," he says. "That's a lot of fun. It's super interesting."
Meanwhile, Joyeeta Das, alum of Oxford Said Business School and CEO of Gyana, a data science firm, confirms that AI is relevant to this day and believes that similar strategy and innovation courses are of extreme value to her career. She shares that in her experience in the technological industry, it has helped her both realize exciting opportunities and face speculations.
Useful Information: It’s important to note that there are usually two opposing sides to every new innovation. Glenn M. Sulmasy, provost and academic officer at Bryant University, explains that at times, the actual inventors of these advanced technologies begin to question their success and impact on society—a term we call “buyer’s remorse.” For him, it’s important for students to reach out to engineers, in order to stimulate a discourse on the addictive and psychological repercussions AI can bring if we are not careful.
Keeping in line with these risks, maybe, as assistant professor Randall K. Minas Jr. suggests, an MBA student’s goal should be not to learn the specifics of AI, but rather how a business that uses it operates. Do you agree?
For more on the topic of technology and learning, complement your reading with A Robot’s Approach to Sentence Correction, or find out about the difference between a Traditional vs Accelerated MBA Program.
Source: US News
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