Visão Special MBAs: Business Schools in a Learning Stage

In this special MBA edition of Visão, Professor René Bohnsack, academic director of The Lisbon MBA from CATÓLICA-LISBON, comments on how Artificial Intelligence (AI) models like ChatGPT enhance productivity but also require a rethinking of curriculum and teaching methods for business schools to adapt and thrive.
The words are ChatGPT’s own and answer the question of whether Artificial Intelligence (AI) will make Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs obsolete: “Although Artificial Intelligence is changing the business world in many ways, whether it will make MBA courses obsolete is a more complex question than it seems. Indeed, AI may automate some tasks, but that doesn’t mean human skills become less important. Critical thinking, strategic decision-making, and effective communication remain highly valued skills in the business world. Moreover, AI cannot fully replicate the complexity of human interactions, such as empathy and teamwork, which are essential in leading and managing teams” – at least for now.
AI mainly changes how MBA, master’s, or post-graduate students are taught and assessed. In the opinion of the president of INESC, Arlindo Oliveira, the big language models “have the potential to profoundly change how we study and prepare papers, by making it practically free and effortless to write texts on the most diverse topics, and to answer specific questions. At a time when there is a significant increase in demand for courses or content on AI, Professor René Bohnsack, academic director of The Lisbon MBA Católica|Nova, ensures that “the transition from tasks such as essays to more presentations and activities that incorporate ChatGPT” is under development. The Lisbon MBA also “encourages students to use the tool in disciplines such as Business Model Innovation, since using the tool in jobs will be a reality for everyone.” Alípio Jorge, associate professor and director of the Department of Computer Science of the Faculty of Sciences – University of Porto, ensures that at this time, AI, namely ChatGPT, still “is not changing much” neither the curricula nor the teaching methods of MBA students, masters or postgraduates.
From the knowledge point of view, Alípio Jorge argues that “ChatGPT was an important demonstrator of a technology already a few decades old, but that has evolved very quickly in results in the last five to ten years” and ensures that the immediate impact on education is “the possibility of fraud.” It has already been detected to be used to answer exam questions, and “it is very easy to be used by students to write assignments or even part of a dissertation,” he warns. Therefore, he adds, “The Academy has to be alert to the possibility of these uses, including launching more creative examination papers and assignments. In Alípio Jorge’s opinion – who is the coordinator of the Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence and Decision Support (LIAAD), a center of INESC TEC – the evaluation will have to be more presential. And “students, as well as all of us, should have the culture of indicating that the ChatGPT, or another generative tool, was used in producing a work.” Also, Arlindo Oliveira admits that the misuse of AI by students is a problem and may affect the reputation of educational institutions. For the former president of the Instituto Superior Técnico, the solution depends more on the schools and universities than on the students and involves adopting rules.
In December, Christian Terwiesch, a professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, tested the latest version of ChatGPT. To do so, she used an exam from her Operations Management course. The chatbot passed the MBA program’s final exam with a better-than-average performance, earning a grade of B-. Professor René Bohnsack also recognizes the negative impact that misuse of this tool can have on the reputation of business schools and says that in order to avoid this, a two-pronged approach must be taken. Firstly, “we have to look at changing the way we test knowledge so that students cannot simply bypass the learning process and use tools like ChatGPT to complete assignments,” he explains. Second, “we have to create a responsible use policy that defines the use of AI tools and how to correctly reference the model when used,” ensuring that students are “held accountable for their actions.” In Alípio Jorge’s opinion, “good institutions must have good quality and scrutiny processes. Fraud can always happen. The important thing is how you react to fraud.”
AI “has enormous potential to increase our productivity, quality of life, and well-being. However, it is a technology that presents serious risks, which must be guarded against, mitigated, and continually managed. A product like ChatGPT, or any other based on current technology, has a huge potential for misinformation or even harm”, declares the professor, citing as an example the “hallucinations” of ChatGPT. The virtual assistant not only deceives but also fabricates information, names, dates, and even historical episodes that never occurred. Alípio Jorge maintains that the entire population should receive information and training on AI, to “be aware of the risks.” Societies must regulate these products, “making people responsible, not robots.
14 million jobs will disappear in the next 5 years
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and new technologies are revolutionizing the labor market, with a clear reconfiguration of employment. However, the extent of this revolution is still unknown. By 2027, almost a quarter (23%) of jobs will be different. It is a labor reconfiguration that will imply not only the creation of 69 million jobs but also the disappearance of 83 million, according to a report released last April by the World Economic Forum, focused on the future of the world of work. Based on responses from 803 companies surveyed worldwide, the document reveals that the greatest effects on job creation and destruction stem from environmental, technological, and economic trends. Large-scale job growth will occur in the education, agriculture, and e-commerce sectors, while the biggest losses are expected to occur in administrative functions and in traditional areas such as security, industry, and commerce. For economist João Cerejeira, the polarization of the labor market, evident in Portugal in the last Census, is expected to worsen in the coming years. “When we look at the groups of professions between 2011 and 2021, the ones that lose weight are those of intermediate level. Unqualified jobs increase, and highly qualified jobs increase,” he explains, recognizing that this is a period of great uncertainty. This professor from the University of Minho exemplifies this trend with professions such as accountant or banker, which are no longer attractive and may disappear since a large part of the work can be automated.
AI models even allow “replacing tasks that were allocated to a more qualified type of work,” such as management positions or team coordination. That is: activities previously considered demanding and even irreplaceable are, after all, replaceable, he says, highlighting the increased productivity in some professions and the importance of continuous training as a positive aspect. “Professions are composed of multiple tasks,” and AI may not imply the disappearance of the profession as a whole, but only of some activities, which will allow using the additional time in tasks with greater value.
Read the full article (original) in Portuguese here.
Source: Visão