Speakers
Description
Cost-effective AI-type applications have arrived with a vengeance. It appears that organizations worldwide are re-engineering their systems and processes to take advantage of the efficiencies and savings that can be provided by deploying such technology. Therefore, it could be argued that the positives regarding the performance/outcomes of employing AI-type technology are overwhelming. However, it could also be argued that there is a certain downside in terms of employment (fewer workers needed to perform a particular task), a reduction in wages for current workers (due to competition for fewer employment opportunities), a loss in control as such systems become more autonomous and a general sense of confusion as employees and employers transition to the new ways of conducting business and general decision making/processing. The contra argument is seductive, to say the least, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest large-scale job destruction in industries of every description when there is a dramatic transformation in the technology being employed. Nevertheless, it has also been argued that despite such destruction, the long-term impact of technological changes invariably results in more jobs being created than those that have been eliminated.
Concerning business-type students, it is suggested that there can be a certain anxiety amongst this body about identifying the nature of those skills they should acquire, which might accentuate their job opportunities for positions requiring AI-type technology. The reason for this anxiety, it is argued, is that many business-type students do not possess or are not taught certain hard computing skills, such as programming. The absence of such skills could, as a consequence, dissuade business-type students from applying for such jobs employing AI-type technology on the understanding that they are not adequately qualified to do so.
However, it is argued that AI-type technology itself is evolving, and the skills associated with successfully employing it are changing as more and more applications of this type require less in the way of hard computing skills and more in the way of soft skills such as communication and leadership. To this end, the paper seeks to navigate such nuances and provide a road map to business-type students whereby they can identify and project those skills that are of use to potential employers using AI-type technology, thus enhancing potential employment prospects.
| Title | How can current business students identify those areas of expertise viewed as critical when applying for positions employing artificial intelligence (AI) technology? |
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