Hearing aids that form a bubble around two people in a crowded room to bring new life and interaction for the hearing impaired. A robot that delivers food to your table after the waitstaff takes the order. AI tutors that instantly customize a student assignment to develop a business plan, whether the interest is in sports, tribal sovereignty, education or geology. A personal AI in my pocket or at my fingertips to converse with me in Spanish or help me summarize a 20 page policy document that I now do not have to review over the weekend.
All of this is happening today and made possible through the fast-moving developments in artificial intelligence. The explosion of capabilities will only accelerate.
What is a leader’s responsibility to prepare for technological transformation? Imagine, as a leader, you could go back 25 years in time. Only you know everything about how cellphones and the internet have changed the world.
How would you prepare your family, community and organization? If you tried to explain the details of all that was to come, you might be labeled a dreamer or a lunatic. A more effective approach would be to create discussion and together envision future possibilities.
Of course, we can’t go back in time or know the future, but we can prepare for tomorrow. Whether you are a leader in government or a nonprofit, a regional company or an educational institution, there exists a leadership imperative – an AI leadership imperative.
Embracing this imperative begins with a first step of engaging those in your orbit. Ask thoughtful questions about AI that allow others to speak, wonder and ideate without judgment. Discover who is secretly using AI (an AI cyborg), who is wary, and who is curious and wants to learn more.
The second step: learn how AI is already impacting your spaces. AI applications are well underway in every field. Knowing what is happening in your industry paves the way for the third step, which is to experiment with AI in small, safe, and relevant ways.
For some, experimentation might be how AI can assist with time-consuming calendaring tasks or transcribing notes and conversations, while bigger explorations might involve using AI to examine disparities in health outcomes among different populations.
A fourth step a leader can take is to gather a team and imagine different scenarios of how to use AI for good, without naively ignoring the potential for harm. This also might involve a working group that develops principles to guide AI use to assure alignment with organizational values.
Action characterizes all the steps. Action means fulfilling our responsibility to upskill students and employees (and leaders) for this new AI world. Inaction means no training, no new learning. Students and employees are then susceptible to deskilling (technology partly automates or simplifies tasks previously done solely by experts) or non-skilling (technology replaces tasks previously done by people, such as ATMs and self-driving vehicles).
Action means strategically and responsibly integrating AI into our organizations to improve effectiveness and steward entrusted public or private resources. This may involve forming teams to address AI policy or strategically applying AI in a way that improves processes or service delivery. Inaction means remaining stuck in practices and processes that date back years or even decades while the competition embraces change and progress.
Action means fulfilling our obligations to serve families, citizens, students, customers and clients. This takes many forms, from delivering lifesaving solutions to all – machine learning made the 2020 COVID-19 vaccine possible in record time – to supplementing faculty instruction with accessible, effective AI math tutoring for every student. Inaction means accepting disparities between those who have access to the social and cultural benefits that technological advancement offers and those who do not.
The AI leadership imperative is upon us. It is critical for Southwest Colorado leaders to begin the AI Journey with steps to action. Let’s take these steps together.
Mario Martinez is the provost and vice president of Academic Affairs at Fort Lewis College. He has been in leadership positions in public and private institutions of higher education since 2014. Sign up for the AI Institute newsletter bit.ly/AIInstitutenews to keep informed of all things AI at FLC and our region.
