Integrating AI In Education, A Change Management Question

Meha Mathur Jan 17, 2024

Mohanbir Sawhney, McCormic Foundation Chair of Technology, Director of the Centre for Research in Technology & Innovation, Associate Dean, Digital Innovation, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, was felicitated with Lifetime Achievement Award at a discussion organised by IMT Ghaziabad in Gurugram on January 16. On the occasion, he delivered an address on the theme ‘Unlocking Business Value from Generative AI: The CXO Agenda’.

He ran the gathering through the journey of generative AI, its mindboggling development since 2017, the infrastructure, the models' generative AI canvas, and how AI can be used, including for the creation of catalogues, extraction of knowledge and creation of content including co-creation of case studies in academics, videos and designs. He advocated for using AI to extract information as that gives focussed results rather than using search engines that give 100 results. To the management education fraternity at the event, he advised, “You cannot avoid AI, so make it part of your life to get to the next level.”

In an exclusive interaction with BW Education, he addressed a gamut of issues pertaining to generative AI. Excerpts:

How can India gain a level playing field in generative AI?

In this field, the US has been leading and a lot of innovation has come out of there but ultimately this is a race for talent. And India has the talent and technology base. So, the playing field can be levelled by using the tools already created and building upon those tools, developing applications relevant to the Indian context. We have big problems in education, healthcare, agriculture and so on, and creating specific applications will create opportunities.

What is the future of education in the wake of AI, and how can AI be used for school as well as higher education?

Education will have to be redesigned ground up. You can either tell students that a calculator is not allowed in exams or you can allow them to use a calculator to do more advanced work. We need to embrace generative AI tools, to design new lessons and courses, exams and evaluations. Right from KG to higher education, integrating AI into the design and development of courses is a huge opportunity. It can enable personalised learning.

The flip side is that the teachers need to master the technology. They need to be trained. As they get older and less willing to learn, they are afraid of it. So, it’s a big change management question.

It’s also a question of resource allocation for training. Do you think the country is ready for that?

The country won’t be ready if you don’t allocate resources. Initiating a national campaign for training teachers, finding scalable ways to train them, and using AI tools to train them are some of the ways. But it will take a proactive thought process and cooperation between the public and private sectors and NGOs, to make it a nationwide skilling initiative. We can have a national AI Education Policy.

Do you think it could further lead to a digital divide?

Yes, it could be worse. It can be called the AI divide because the schools and students who have access will be able to achieve 10 times better output. What we do not want to happen is for prestigious private schools to become even better, while the disadvantaged students do not.

In creative fields like writing and design, what are the concerns, and how can India evolve regulations on the copyright front?

We have to take an enlightened view of intellectual property. What if everything was open source and we found other ways to capitalise? I am struggling with that, because as I use AI to write case studies can I copyright those? If I make the case study open source, that would be disruptive because students have to pay $5 for every case study at some Ivy League schools. If I make the case study open source, the return that I get is that my name grows. So, copyright is not the only answer.

How will the world of work and career avenues now change?

It will be dramatically transformed. There will be job displacements. There will be a net reduction in the number of people needed. But the people who will be there will be doing interesting work. In terms of careers, low-level cognitive work like paralegal, low-level coding and secretarial work will be badly affected. So, we have to challenge ourselves to get to the next level of value addition in that chain and do more creative and strategic work.