Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and
Speaker 2: Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 3: Well, we're thinking a lot about the FED this week.
Speaker 3: It's dual mandate. That's intention right now as we start
Speaker 3: to see cracks in the labor market, but inflation remains
Speaker 3: sticky in some places. And of course the effect that AI,
Speaker 3: Carol is going to have on the labor market, that's
Speaker 3: going to make the Fed's job even more tricky and
Speaker 3: perhaps our job even more tricky too.
Speaker 1: We have a great guest to talk about AI and
Speaker 1: the labor force and preparing the next generations of labor
Speaker 1: workers in terms of getting ready for the impact AI
Speaker 1: will have. David Marchek is watching all of this closely.
Speaker 1: He's dean of the co God School of Business at
Speaker 1: American University. Three years ago he set out to become
Speaker 1: the first AI first business school in the country. He
Speaker 1: joins us here in our Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio. David,
Speaker 1: great to have you here.
Speaker 2: With us, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Tell us take us back three years and what happened,
Speaker 1: because we've been kind of assumed now is it two
Speaker 1: and a half years with AI, but tell us what
Speaker 1: happened three years ago.
Speaker 2: So I'm not a techie person, but we had the
Speaker 2: president of Google, Kent Walker, who basically said that AI
Speaker 2: was going to be as profound as fire or electricity.
Speaker 2: And I said, well, that seems like a strong statement,
Speaker 2: but even if it's zero point one percent true, it's big.
Speaker 2: Then we had a fellow named Brett Wilson, who's a
Speaker 2: CEO of an AI venture capital firm, and a student
Speaker 2: raised his hand and said, am I going to be
Speaker 2: replaced by AI? And Brett said, you likely won't be
Speaker 2: replaced by AI, but you could be replaced by someone
Speaker 2: who knows AI if you don't. So at that moment,
Speaker 2: I said, we need to infuse AI into everything we
Speaker 2: do to prepare our students for an AI workforce. And
Speaker 2: we've done that over the last three years.
Speaker 3: So what does that actually look like in the classroom?
Speaker 2: So when you start at co God School of Business,
Speaker 2: if you're an eighteen year old, the first day is
Speaker 2: your undergrad and grad the first day of orientation, and
Speaker 2: we tell you you're going to use AI every day.
Speaker 2: Most students were prohibited from using AI in high school
Speaker 2: but they did it anyway, So we want to teach
Speaker 2: students how to use it properly. We actually start by
Speaker 2: teaching what's wrong with AI before we teach them what's
Speaker 2: right with AI, and then over the four years or
Speaker 2: if you're getting an MBA, we want them to learn
Speaker 2: how to underwrite an investment, how to do fundamental research,
Speaker 2: how to develop a marketing plan, how to learn to negotiate,
Speaker 2: all using AI because they'll be expected to use AI
Speaker 2: in the workforce.
Speaker 1: That's what we keep hearing increasingly is the people who
Speaker 1: know and understand how to use it as a tool
Speaker 1: will really do well going forward. Okay, so talk to
Speaker 1: us little bit more though about because I think one
Speaker 1: of the things that we're playing around with David is
Speaker 1: that we use it too and then it's like okay,
Speaker 1: but then we kind of check it out because we
Speaker 1: just don't totally trust all of it. So tell us
Speaker 1: how you guys teach that aspect of it, like what
Speaker 1: to trust, what not to how do you fact check
Speaker 1: some of this information that comes across.
Speaker 2: Still, so we have a professor Ed Walsall who teaches
Speaker 2: advanced Data Management data analytics. His whole class is used
Speaker 2: to show how AI comes up with wrong answers incorrect information.
Speaker 2: So he as students analyze data sets, come up with
Speaker 2: predictive analytics, and he shows that AI makes mistakes all
Speaker 2: the time. That's as valuable as learning what's right with AI.
Speaker 2: So AI can be a powerful tool, but you need
Speaker 2: to be skeptical. You need to test it, you need
Speaker 2: to probe, and you need to be able to shape
Speaker 2: it to produce the right answers.
Speaker 3: You know, I want to talk about your background a
Speaker 3: little bit and then talk more about AI and perhaps
Speaker 3: why you approach it this way. You have a really
Speaker 3: interesting background a lawyer. You served in the Clinton and
Speaker 3: Biden administrations in very different capacities. You did more than
Speaker 3: a dozen years as a managing director and member of
Speaker 3: the management committee at Carlisle. You've written a book, a
Speaker 3: co author to book on presidential transition transitions. You don't
Speaker 3: have the traditional background of a dean, like traditional academic
Speaker 3: background of a dean.
Speaker 2: I also had poor grades and was not the best student.
Speaker 3: That wasn't in the bio that I wrote. But I'm
Speaker 3: glad you're bringing us that color. How does that perhaps
Speaker 3: make you think differently about the workforce and what they
Speaker 3: need to be prepared to do once they leave the
Speaker 3: academic world.
Speaker 2: So I had the best boss ever who actually hosts
Speaker 2: a show at Bloomberg, David Rubinstein. David also was probably
Speaker 2: the least likely person to run a private equity firm,
Speaker 2: he had no private equity background. What I learned from
Speaker 2: David is surround yourself with people that are better and
Speaker 2: smarter than you in each of their areas and empower them,
Speaker 2: and you can do anything. So what we're basically focused
Speaker 2: on is ensuring that our students are prepared for the
Speaker 2: AI workforce, the AI economy, which is changing rapidly. Stanford
Speaker 2: just put out a study that shows that AI exposed
Speaker 2: jobs for twenty two to twenty five year old are
Speaker 2: shrinking between thirteen and twenty percent.
Speaker 1: It's terrifying.
Speaker 2: It's a very hard time. My daughter graduated last year,
Speaker 2: it was very hard for her to get a job.
Speaker 2: We see it every day, and so what we're trying
Speaker 2: to do is make sure that our students have a
Speaker 2: leg up when they apply for jobs, which means you
Speaker 2: need to have the fundamentals of a business education, marketing, accounting, management, finance,
Speaker 2: et cetera, plus know how to use AI and everything
Speaker 2: you do. And we're also doubling down on what used
Speaker 2: to be considered soft skills communication, teamwork, the ability to
Speaker 2: think on your feet. Those skills are more important today
Speaker 2: than in an AI economy. Look at your jobs. You
Speaker 2: have to think on your feet every day, react to news.
Speaker 2: From times it works, sometimes it doesn't, just but having
Speaker 2: an entrepreneur mindset and being able to think and create
Speaker 2: is essential for today's economy.
Speaker 1: How do you, as an educator but also somebody from
Speaker 1: the business world think about how important it is? Though?
Speaker 1: When somebody their first couple of jobs or their first
Speaker 1: job at they're learning so much. The learning curve is
Speaker 1: so much, but it teaches their brain to think in
Speaker 1: maybe different ways that they maybe didn't get when they
Speaker 1: were at university or at college. And so I'm just wondering, like,
Speaker 1: are we cutting that out of younger generations, that ability
Speaker 1: to mess up learn I learned so much from mistakes
Speaker 1: I made in kind of my first couple of jobs,
Speaker 1: and I'm just wondering, are we getting rid of that?
Speaker 2: So I think we are getting rid at in some
Speaker 2: ways because AI will replace some jobs. And my view
Speaker 2: was incumbent on universities and educational institutions to be able
Speaker 2: to foresee that and to give students the skills that
Speaker 2: you may have learned in your first job. We're trying
Speaker 2: to give them those skills at the university through in
Speaker 2: classroom and out of classroom experiences. So we have a
Speaker 2: lot of competitions for students to learn how to pitch,
Speaker 2: where they have to answer questions on their feet. We
Speaker 2: have investment clubs where students are investing actual money and
Speaker 2: they need to present and defend and investment ideas. The
Speaker 2: ability to give a pitch, to communicate orally to work
Speaker 2: in teams is as important as.
Speaker 3: Ever, how do you have to think about the admissions
Speaker 3: process differently as a result of what happens now or
Speaker 3: what you want to have happened in a school right now.
Speaker 2: Traditionally, and maybe this is why I wasn't a great student,
Speaker 2: a teacher stands in front of a classroom and communicates,
Speaker 2: disseminates information which a student absorbs, and then the student
Speaker 2: is assessed on how good they are by how much
Speaker 2: they can retain and regurgitate AI replaces all that you
Speaker 2: can get any piece of information at your fingertips. So
Speaker 2: now the best students are going to be ones that
Speaker 2: are most curious, that have an entrepreneurial mindset. They're going
Speaker 2: to be able to take risk, They're going to be
Speaker 2: able to figure out stuff on their own, and so
Speaker 2: we're looking for that in the admissions process.
Speaker 3: You know, it's funny, Karl and I talked about this
Speaker 3: lot because one of the things that we found these
Speaker 3: lms are so good at is if you prompt it properly,
Speaker 3: it can essentially write you a paper to answer question
Speaker 3: and that a teacher. I mean, I'm not giving anyone
Speaker 3: any news here that they don't already know.
Speaker 2: Who students start the way ahead of us, just ahead
Speaker 2: of us here, I mean for me and somebody who
Speaker 2: graduated from what like twenty ish years ago, this is
Speaker 2: like kind of crazy.
Speaker 3: But I think back to my own experience in college.
Speaker 3: I went to a liberal arts school and some of
Speaker 3: those aha moments that occurred for me were like late
Speaker 3: at night when I was trying to write a term
Speaker 3: paper or trying to write some sort of analysis of
Speaker 3: a book I read, And those are the moments that
Speaker 3: stuck with me. Those are the moments where I learned
Speaker 3: how to make those connections. Do we lose the ability
Speaker 3: to make those connections because of this technology, I.
Speaker 2: Don't think so. I think it actually aids you. So
Speaker 2: you were probably a better student than I was. But
Speaker 2: when I was writing an essay, I had a hard
Speaker 2: time figuring out topics, structuring an essay, structuring an argument.
Speaker 2: AI can help you do that. It's a collaborator, and
Speaker 2: so those aha moments are still there, they're just different. Also,
Speaker 2: the ability to work in teams is going to be
Speaker 2: much more important today than it was when we were
Speaker 2: growing up. And I have students come to me all
Speaker 2: the time and say, boy, this team work is hard.
Speaker 2: This one student is a show off, this one doesn't
Speaker 2: do their work, this one has views that I can't understand,
Speaker 2: and they don't change. And I'm like, welcome to the
Speaker 2: real world. I have that every day in my job,
Speaker 2: and I've had it every day in my job for
Speaker 2: the last forty years. So teaching students not only the
Speaker 2: fundamental basic skills that you learn, reading, writing, reasoning, plus
Speaker 2: AI skills and these soft skills, which I call power skills,
Speaker 2: that's the future of education in my view.
Speaker 1: But are we also losing the ability of people kind
Speaker 1: of struggling David through something and like maybe having to
Speaker 1: work a little bit hard and understanding the idea that Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe spend a little bit more time with it, dig
Speaker 1: a little bit deeper, I don't know, look at some
Speaker 1: different sources and like figure something out versus going like
Speaker 1: I'm blown away by some of the stuff that you
Speaker 1: get off of chat, GPT and other chatbots, if you will,
Speaker 1: And I'm just kind of wondering, are we losing something?
Speaker 2: Maybe they're still struggling. But let's say I were a
Speaker 2: twenty two year old and I wanted to be your
Speaker 2: research assistant. You would expect me to be able to
Speaker 2: find any piece of information at my fingertips any day
Speaker 2: and deliver it to you. You'd expect me to have
Speaker 2: much more advanced skills today than if I were applying
Speaker 2: twenty years ago or in my case, forty years ago.
Speaker 2: So it's just a different type of struggle, and the
Speaker 2: students today need to learn how to do the stuff
Speaker 2: that's required in an AI economy.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you about teachers how they had to
Speaker 1: rethink how they teach, because that's something you guys have
Speaker 1: had to deal with as well.
Speaker 2: That is a great question. Faculty traditionally are very resistant
Speaker 2: to change. We have faculty that have taught the same
Speaker 2: thing over and over again. For We've actually created a
Speaker 2: very entrepreneurial culture among our faculty. Where we started with
Speaker 2: a few early adopters, then we had some others that
Speaker 2: we dragged along. Today, ninety percent of our faculty are
Speaker 2: infusing AI in their classroom. At the end of the
Speaker 2: spring semester, it was fifty. So over the summer there
Speaker 2: was just a cultural change where everybody said, the parade's leaving.
Speaker 2: Either need to get in front of it or I'm
Speaker 2: going to be left behind.
Speaker 3: We're speaking right now with David Marchek. He's the dean
Speaker 3: of the co god A School of a Business at
Speaker 3: American University. He's also formerly of the Carlisle Group and
Speaker 3: served in the Clinton and Biden administrations. Just a headline
Speaker 3: crossing the Bloomberg terminal, Carol, as you mentioned, President Trump
Speaker 3: said the US struck a second vessel faring drugs from Venezuela,
Speaker 3: showing his determination to proceed with an aggressive strategy that's
Speaker 3: ratcheted up tensions with the country and prompted questions about
Speaker 3: its legality. We're monitoring his story for developments. We'll let
Speaker 3: you know if President Trump makes any comments on it.
Speaker 1: So what do you think David is constructive for we
Speaker 1: as communicators and having guests and we're talking about A
Speaker 1: I feel like every station somehow, you know, all roads
Speaker 1: lead back to AI.
Speaker 3: Are you trying to get him to give us advice
Speaker 3: about how we AI prove ourselves? No, No, because I
Speaker 3: would be open to that too.
Speaker 1: Just thinking about the smart way to deal with it,
Speaker 1: because I think it's really easy to get caught up
Speaker 1: in the exuberance around it.
Speaker 2: There's so much spending.
Speaker 1: That's going on, and we're trying to like we even
Speaker 1: today did kind of a reality check about where we
Speaker 1: are in AI.
Speaker 3: Like it's kind of a wild world where we're talking
Speaker 3: about two hundred million dollar salaries for people who are
Speaker 3: poached and brought to meta platforms for specific technology.
Speaker 1: Just trying to understand what do you think is constructive
Speaker 1: based on kind of the experience you have had reorienting
Speaker 1: your approaches there.
Speaker 2: So I think what we're seeing is a technology revolution
Speaker 2: in a much more abbreviated version than we've seen it before.
Speaker 2: It's the fastest technology ever to be adopted. So chat
Speaker 2: GPT has acquired the same number of users they you know,
Speaker 2: five times as fast as Netflix or Amazon, twenty times
Speaker 2: as fast as Facebook. So when the mobile revolution took place,
Speaker 2: which we all live through, it took thirty years for
Speaker 2: us to really use the phone for everything. AI is
Speaker 2: changing that in a matter of months. So I do
Speaker 2: think this is a transformational change that we're seeing. It's
Speaker 2: going to change everything in the economy faster than any
Speaker 2: technology change that ever has happened to Do.
Speaker 1: You think we know if yet it's good for the economy.
Speaker 2: I don't think we know. I think there's big pluses
Speaker 2: and I think there's big minuses. My view is that
Speaker 2: there will be winners and losers, and my focus is
Speaker 2: taking care of the students that are at my school
Speaker 2: to help them prepare.
Speaker 3: Well, let's talk a little bit about the outcomes that
Speaker 3: you've seen thus far. You're really still early into this experiment.
Speaker 3: Three years ago, as Carol mentioned, was when you set
Speaker 3: out to become the first AI first business school in
Speaker 3: the country. What can you tell us about graduates who
Speaker 3: are finding full time employment on the undergrad side, then
Speaker 3: also on the NBA side.
Speaker 2: It's helping them. It's helping them have a leg up
Speaker 2: in me be more competitive. One of the things I'm
Speaker 2: most excited about this year is we're offering an AI
Speaker 2: I'M minor to non business schools. So let's say you're
Speaker 2: a student that wants to go to med school. You've
Speaker 2: done to what traditionally a student does, takeing a biodegree,
Speaker 2: you have some labs, you're applying to med school. If
Speaker 2: you have an AI minor, you're going to be much
Speaker 2: more attractive because AI is going to transform healthcare more
Speaker 2: than perhaps any other field. If you want to be
Speaker 2: a policy major and go work for a United States Senator,
Speaker 2: and that senator the chief of staff says, Okay, you're
Speaker 2: a policy major from a good school and you have
Speaker 2: an AI minor, I know you're going to be able
Speaker 2: to do research for me, for any hearing, for any questions,
Speaker 2: for anything I need to know much faster, and you're
Speaker 2: going to be able to analyze data much better than others.
Speaker 2: So I think it's a huge leg up for both
Speaker 2: business students and non business students.
Speaker 1: Do you ever envision a class where it's just someone
Speaker 1: talking to you like chat, GPT or whatever version might
Speaker 1: ultimately come out, like you just think about the we
Speaker 1: always talk about a great conversation, how much we can
Speaker 1: learn if you need to ask the right questions. But
Speaker 1: I think about that back and forth.
Speaker 3: I think duelingo CEO has said that AI could replace teachers.
Speaker 2: AI could dis intermediate the whole education system. Okay, and
Speaker 2: we're experimenting. I'll give you an example. We have a
Speaker 2: professor named Tommy White. He runs our entrepreneurship program. He's incredible,
Speaker 2: one of those popular professors. He created a class this
Speaker 2: year using all AI to create the class. It has
Speaker 2: no books, no reading. The only assignments are prompts, prompts
Speaker 2: plus teamwork. We'll see how it goes. Will it work,
Speaker 2: I don't know, but we're trying so maybe so maybe.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're experimenting. And that's one of the things
Speaker 2: that we've done to create this AI first culture is
Speaker 2: we've told our faculty it's okay to fail because nobody
Speaker 2: really knows what's going on or what we're doing because
Speaker 2: it's so new. So try something it doesn't work, try
Speaker 2: something else, really interesting stuff.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you'll find some time to come back to us
Speaker 1: and can with conversation love love. Maybe we talked to
Speaker 1: some students at some point.
Speaker 2: That'd be great. We have some incredible students.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that would be a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: Get on the road, go to d I'm happy to
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 2: Come teach a class, try that good stuff. Thank you, David,
Speaker 2: Thanks nying.
Speaker 1: Really appreciate David Marcheck. He is the dean of the
Speaker 1: co God School of Business at American University. Really fascinating conversation.
Speaker 1: If you missed any of it, please be sure to
Speaker 1: check out our podcast. You can download it a little
Speaker 1: bit later.
Speaker 2: Off