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Dan Loney: The Wharton School has
announced a new AI and Analytics Initiative. It's going to build
upon the school's great success
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in recent years around analytics
and data science, but also incorporate artificial
intelligence to further research
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in coursework innovation. Great
to be joined here in studio by Wharton Dean, Erika James. Great
to see you again.
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Erika James: Thank you. Happy to be here. - I guess let's start with how
this all came about in the first
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place. - Wow. So years ago, almost 20 years
ago, we started work in data science and analytics. Nobody
knew then, maybe some people
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knew, but I don't think people
could appreciate how the world would change and evolve, and the
role that data science would
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play in society. And so when
generative AI became a thing for the rest of us a couple of
years ago, we looked and said,
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our faculty have been doing
something connected to AI, Artificial Intelligence, for a
while. And we've just been
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building on the work from
analytics and data science. And I had an opportunity to sit in
at one of our executive
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education classrooms, which was
the first AI class that we offered to executives, and it
was just a few months ago, and I
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saw the reaction of the
participants and how they were soaking this up. And I saw how
fluidly our faculty were able to
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connect with them in artificial
intelligence. And I looked around and I started to see how
many of our faculty were doing
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work in this area. And I thought,
we've got something here. It's time to highlight this latent
skill and expertise that was in
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the Wharton School. And so,
voila, here we are. - So I guess then this is
kind of the next natural step in
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the process. I mean, because
normally, I don't think you truly associate Wharton with
leading edge technology. But
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there obviously is a path here
to be developed. - Absolutely. So as you, as most of our
listeners know, Wharton has a
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history, a legacy brand in the
finance space. And that has served us well for a very long
time and will continue to serve
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us into the future. But what
Wharton has not promoted as much is all the other areas in which we
have expertise. And so once you
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begin to peel the onion back and
see the layers of content and knowledge and expertise that
exists within the school
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already, it gives you so much
more fodder to play with. And right now, you know, the area is
AI. It's a need in the world.
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And it's an area that a very high
significant percentage of our faculty are are doing work in. - And
so then
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I guess this kind of opens the
door for Wharton, but also for other business schools, to really
play an important role as we
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move forward here, in helping
companies understand how to best use the technology. Also kind of
prepare that next level of
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future leaders as well. - Yeah,
absolutely. So much of what people think
about artificial intelligence is
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in the algorithm and the
underlying mechanism that allows this tool to do what it does and
be as powerful as it is. But at
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the end of the day, in order for
it to be relevant, you've got to learn how to apply the
technology in meaningful ways.
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And so business is nothing more
than the utilization of tools, products, services, technology, to
deliver some value to some
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entity. And artificial
intelligence is an opportunity to create significant value if
you know how to use it. And so
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schools like Wharton and other
business schools have the opportunity to leverage both an
understanding of the algorithms
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behind the technology, but also
the application of it so that it really is being able to be used
for leaders and decision makers
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in the corporate sector, in the
nonprofit sector, to make their businesses more valuable. - We
talked
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about the surge that we're
seeing around businesses using AI. This is the same type of
process, but obviously in the
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education space. - Yes. And so I look at,
internally, my role as dean. I am a leader of an institution
that requires the same sorts of
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activity that you would have in
a for profit space. And so I have to think, how do we make
the Wharton School more
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efficient and more productive,
and how are ways that we can leverage the same technology
that we're teaching other
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executives to use for our own
purposes. And so looking at, from the admissions process, from the
alumni engagement cycle. All of
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those things have an opportunity
to benefit from this tool just like decision makers in the
corporate sector. - So part
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of this is also, and this was
part of the announcement, a collaboration with OpenAI in
the process of developing this.
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Tell us more about that. - Yeah,
so we're really pleased to be the
first business school to partner
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with OpenAI using their
technology ChatGPT. And we've created a license for all of our
incoming MBA students, both at
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the full time and the Executive
MBA programs. And the goal isn't to mandate that they use this, but
create an opportunity for them
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to have access and exposure in a
really safe environment, because the OpenAI platform protects
the security of the information
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that we're going to be using.
And so as an academic institution, that's obviously
very important to us. And so
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it's, I think, a really
wonderful partnership. And we're pleased to be able to have such
a prominent company to be able
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to do this with. - So what are some of the areas
that faculty are looking at and
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studying AI, and especially the
impact that it's going to have or maybe already is having on
business right now?
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- So you're going to get me in
trouble, because there are way more faculty doing work in this
area that I can -- than I'm going
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to be able to give credit to.
But I'll highlight just a few. So our faculty member, Stefano
Puntoni, and Bob Meyer in
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marketing, are doing a number of
studies on artificial intelligence and wellbeing,
which isn't necessarily a
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combination of constructs that
you would put together. But they were looking at companion
chatbots and determining their
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effectiveness in engaging with
people experiencing mental health crises. And we found some
things that are, I think, going
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to be surprising to the average
listener about the effectiveness of those chatbots
being able to determine signs of
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distress and human wellbeing.
Another area of focus is by Professor Hamsa Bastani, who's
doing work on the escalation of
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COVID cases. So when COVID was
the thing in the early -- in 2020, and looking at how it has
traveled in Greece along the
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borders, and the allocation of
limited testing supplies, and how that determines whether or
not the COVID will expand or
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retreat, and making those kinds
of determinations. And then Sonny Tambe's research
focuses on how AI is
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transforming management, and how
the current workforce can upskill to become algorithmic
bilinguals. So those are just a
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few examples of some of the
really cutting edge scholarship that our faculty are doing in
this regard. - So
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it's obviously a very unique
time as we move forward here. How do you think then that AI
is going to potentially impact
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the school, but even beyond that,
and this goes to a little bit of what you were saying before, your
role as Dean here at Wharton?
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Because there's a lot in play
here. - Yeah. So it's going to affect the
school in a couple of ways,
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probably most pronounced is,
given the significant number of people that we have focused on
this area, it's going to create
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a different brand, if you will,
for the school. So it's not only Wharton, the finance school, but
Wharton, the AI school. And
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that's going to expose us to
different opportunities for corporate partnerships. It's
going to expose us to people who
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will choose us now than they
might have before, not knowing that we had this level of
expertise. So it could
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ultimately fundamentally change
the opportunity for the relationships that we have, both
for students, faculty, and with our
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alumni and corporate clients.
But more practically, as a dean, and as a leader, I always have
to be thinking about how to make
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this school better. And AI is a
tool to make things better. It can make things better. And I want
to be cautious, because as we
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know, there are some ethical and
other concerns that we've got to be mindful of. And so thinking
about the way in which AI is
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influencing higher education,
the way in which AI is influencing the work that we are
preparing our students to go out
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and do, all of that, The
curricular changes in innovation through AI in what
we teach and how we deliver what
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we teach. All of that is going
to fundamentally, I think, influence how we think about the
school going forward. - It's
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amazing to see all of the change that
has gone on in the last few years, and obviously all the
change that's going to be
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happening here at the Wharton
School. Great to see you again. Thanks very much.
- Thank you.
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- You go it. Dean Erika
James of the Wharton School.