UKTI.HUB | Tech Insights Series Inaugural Lecture Successfully Concludes
The first session of the “Tech Insights”lecture series, hosted by UKTI.HUB, concluded successfully on October 30. This session focused on one of the hottest topics in the tech world today—Generative AI (GenAI). The event featured the esteemed “Dr. Anil Doshi”, a Harvard Business School alumnus and Assistant Professor at UCL School of Management, who shared profound insights on how GenAI is shaping human work and creativity.
Dr. Doshi is an accomplished scholar and entrepreneur. As the founder of introPLAY, a platform dedicated to community health, and with prior experience in multiple financial institutions, his expertise offers valuable perspectives on the opportunities and challenges brought about by the AI era.
Lecture Recap
With the theme “Generative AI and Organizations”, Dr. Doshi presented his team's latest research findings, exploring the present applications and future trends of GenAI in four key areas: Creativity, Decision-Making, Knowledge Production, and Work.
Creativity
Dr. Doshi began by examining the impact of GenAI on human creativity. He likened AI to a creative assistant that can help individuals break through mental blocks, spark inspiration, and produce more original and practical work.
One of his experiments tasked participants with writing an eight-sentence story under different conditions: creating it entirely on their own, or incorporating 1 or 5 suggestions generated by GenAI. The stories were then evaluated by a third-party organization based on two criteria: novelty and practicality.
The results showed that stories created with AI assistance scored higher in both dimensions, demonstrating AI’s potential to enhance individual creativity. However, the research also revealed that AI-assisted stories tended to resemble one another, suggesting that over-reliance on AI could lead to homogenization of creativity on a collective level. Dr. Doshi termed this phenomenon “the more ideas, the less originality”—a thought-provoking issue for further reflection. Additionally, he noted that AI’s ability to boost creativity was more pronounced among individuals with lower baseline creativity, which in turn could encourage highly creative people to push boundaries further.
Decision-Making
The discussion then shifted to the role of GenAI in strategic decision-making, with Dr. Doshi highlighting two key studies from his research.
In one study, the team used GPT-4 to generate over 60 business models spanning 10 industries. They invited strategy professors, non-specialists, and AI systems to assess the likelihood of success for these models.
The findings revealed that evaluations by a single large language model (LLM) were often inconsistent and biased. However, by aggregating predictions from multiple LLMs, the researchers were able to simulate diverse perspectives, effectively mitigating individual biases and arriving at conclusions that closely aligned with those of human experts.
Dr. Doshi also briefly mentioned another study analyzing AI evaluations in real-world business scenarios, further validating the potential of AI in enhancing strategic decision-making processes.
Knowledge Production
Dr. Doshi’s third focus area was the influence of AI on knowledge production, particularly how it affects researchers’ thought processes and receptivity to ideas.
This study observed how researchers of varying experience levels used AI in their work and assessed their acceptance of AI-generated ideas. It found that less experienced researchers were more open to ideas provided by AI, while more experienced researchers tended to resist external inputs.
Dr. Doshi emphasized the importance of addressing these differences when implementing AI in organizations. Tailored training and support programs should be designed to meet the diverse needs of employees, fostering smoother adoption and enhancing knowledge production efficiency.
Work
The final research area explored how AI impacts workplace experiences. Participants were asked to either use AI extensively or avoid using it over five days, and their experiences were compared.
The study revealed that on days when participants used AI, they felt more innovative and productive. However, it also showed that AI could increase workloads, particularly for junior employees, and raised concerns about reputation risks.
Dr. Doshi stressed the need to rethink the meaning and value of work in the AI era and explore the best modes of collaboration between humans and AI.
Interactive Session
During the Q&A session, the audience actively engaged with Dr. Doshi, discussing various aspects of AI’s impact on workflows, employee interactions, and productivity. Dr. Doshi provided thoughtful answers and shared actionable recommendations:
- On AI Dependency: When a participant expressed concern about over-relying on AI tools, Dr. Doshi acknowledged that leveraging AI for efficiency is beneficial, but stressed the importance of maintaining a balance to preserve independent thinking skills.
- On Time Utilization: Another attendee asked how to make the most of the time saved by using AI. Dr. Doshi suggested encouraging employees to pursue exploratory learning, develop new skills, or work on personal projects, transforming the time savings into long-term individual and organizational growth.
- On Job Displacement: Addressing worries about AI replacing certain jobs, Dr. Doshi acknowledged the potential impact on repetitive roles but highlighted new opportunities emerging in fields such as AI training and ethics.
- On Content Value: Responding to concerns about the dilution of value in creative content due to AI, Dr. Doshi argued that the proliferation of AI-generated content could actually increase appreciation for truly exceptional, original works, thus elevating the value of human creativity.
Conclusion
In his closing remarks, Dr. Doshi summarized that while the AI era presents significant opportunities and challenges, embracing these changes with a proactive mindset will be key. He urged society to explore optimal ways of collaborating with AI, aiming for a future where technology and humanity advance together.
Comments