AI is Not the Enemy

Everyone has seen the headlines.

Fears and uncertainties about the future of artificial intelligence (AI) are running rampant across the media. These worries are especially commonplace when it comes to business.

Will businesses use this technology for good? Will I still have a job or will I be replaced? Are the robots coming to get us?

A lot of that fear is overhyped says Ravi Bapna, University of Minnesota and Carlson School of Management professor and coauthor of the book (with Anindya Ghose) of Thrive, a forthcoming MIT Press book on the positive aspects of AI.

“By and large, I think there is a lot of misunderstanding about what AI is and how it’s going to impact business and society,” he says. “This technology is much more layered, it’s much more complex than prior general purpose technologies, such as electricity, computing, and even going all the way back to the steam engine. I think people can see that AI is much more intangible and as a result, people go toward the doom and gloom of what this could be.” 

There are already myriad ways in which businesses are using AI and its capabilities for good. For example, some smartwatch devices use sensors that track hundreds of metrics about the person wearing them. One of those metrics is heart rate variability, and in pregnant women, a deviation in this metric could predict a premature-born baby. If the woman wearing this device lived in a rural part of the country, this would send her a warning and give her time to travel and see a doctor.

In education, this technology can be applied as a personal tutor for students. At scale, large language model-based “tutor bots” could meet students where they are in their learning journeys and enhance the capacity of overburdened teachers.

Some other important applications of this technology could be sitting on your phone right now. Machine learning and AI algorithms are used to give you more diverse connections on dating apps, recommend a new show you might like on your favorite streaming service, or alert you when your credit card has a fraudulent charge.

“This is an exciting time to be in this space,” Bapna says. “The University and the Carlson School are at the forefront of education and so much of the fundamental development is happening here.”

While major technology companies, such as Amazon, Airbnb, Microsoft, Google, and Uber have many data scientists trained in deploying these algorithms, a large majority of the remaining Fortune 500 companies need a lot of help, Bapna says. He and others at the Carlson School recently completed a two-day executive education course where 25 business leaders came to the U of M to understand how this technology can be utilized in their company.

“The leaders of these businesses were not trained in AI when they did their MBAs 10 or 15 years ago,” he says. “So we’ve developed a whole variety of programs so they can become champions of this technology.”

As AI and data science are embraced by more and more businesses, Bapna sees the job market shifting, much like it does any time a new technology comes around. For instance, there may be less of a demand for knowledge workers, such as a consultant, but there would be a great deal of need for people who embrace and know how to work with AI tools.

As of now, however, AI is only good at completing one small task at a time. Most workers are working on multiple tasks that also require judgment. While AI tools can eliminate certain tasks and processes, they can’t automate all aspects of human labor—especially when it comes to innovation.

“I see why people are apprehensive,” he says. “But at the same time, if this technology is going to help us solve so many grand challenges, such as education or healthcare or climate change, we’re going to need people to embrace this.”