ROUNDTABLE REVIEW
Jessica Chelekis “I agree that we need something that’s a little less ad hoc and more systematic to co-ordinate with industry in the right way. I would like to look at making this a central topic for our MBA advisory board and organise formal discussions with industry representatives about how AI is being used and what we need to do to prepare students for the job market – not just for today, but also five years from now. We need to start addressing it urgently.” How can we mitigate the potential biases and discrimination that can arise from AI algorithms? Abdullah Abonamah “Universities, or any organisation for that matter, are not necessarily good at coming up with their own governance, models, regimes and so on. The only way to accelerate that is through some sort of government regulation. I know it’s bureaucratic, but it has been effective in ensuring that things get done, especially with the tremendous amount of data that’s becoming available. “The EU AI Act is a good first step and I hope the US and the rest of the world will follow suit. AI is becoming pervasive and many potential problems could arise, so it needs to be regulated. We can’t say that the industry is going to regulate itself, because I’m afraid this doesn’t work.” Jessica Chelekis “We have to see how the EU AI Act pans out. It’s a little early because it doesn’t, as yet, have any power, but it will be interesting to see what enforcement looks like and how organisations and industry respond.” What role should business schools play in educating future leaders about the responsible use of AI? Abdullah Abonamah “I think there is a great opportunity for business schools to engage with the business community and educate them about the value of AI and how it can be integrated at a strategic level. A lot of executives don’t understand how AI can transform their organisations. In addition, while the technical people are good at building systems, they are not necessarily good with business alignment and creating business value out of this technology. So, schools have a tremendous task to educate.”
how whatever they are asked to do benefits them, otherwise they are far less likely to engage.” Jessica Chelekis “Yes, provide some training and outline what you can expect to get out of it, but also offer some simple steps and guidance to make it less of a barrier to overcome in the first place. I think that might be the real key ticket to getting larger numbers of faculty on board.” Craig Robinson “I feel it’s a bit like the diffusion of an innovation curve in terms of early and late adopters, but there’s certainly still some way to go in terms of drawing in parts of the academy that are harder to engage and everyone will have variants of that. There probably does need to be recognition that a redesign – more fundamental than the annual updates to modules we typically produce – might be needed as things develop over the next few years.” Tamim Elbasha “One way to get faculty members’ interest that I really can’t recommend enough is to get them together and say ‘this is what’s happening in the world. Look how AI is used, not only in education but also globally. How do you see yourself five or 10 years from now and what kinds of skills might you and your students need?’ It’s a very sobering exercise. We did it with 18 faculty members who all came back and asked if we could we do it again with more people the following term, so we saw their engagement very quickly.” How can business school deans encourage collaboration between academia, industry and government to address the evolving needs and challenges associated with AI and data analytics? Theodoros Evgeniou “I almost never teach an MBA session on AI without having an executive guest joining. This is simply because things are moving so fast that you need to have somebody from a business, start‑up or regulator come in and talk about what’s happening today. I think it will be critical to put in place some practices or processes that facilitate executives coming to the classroom, especially since Covid taught us that most of these things can be done in virtual mode.”
Ambition | MARCH/APRIL 2024 | 25
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