The seminar is focused on the skills required to be an entrepreneurial leader over the next decade (2032).

E.O. Wilson observed that the ‘real problem of humanity is that we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology.’ This seminar will examine 5 recently developed ‘godlike technologies’ that have passed commercial viability and are on- track to change the foundations of business and society by 2032. It will do so in the context of 2 trends that have the same disruptive potential – climate change and demographic shifts.

What are the educational objectives?

The seminar will give students a basic understanding of 5 emerging technologies and 2 intersecting trends. It is designed to prepare students for the commercial and ethical choices they will face as these technologies get widely adopted and increase their potency.

1. Learn through engagement: Students will get a foundational understanding of the 5 selected technologies and how they reinforce each other.

• Ubiquitous networks: These networks collect data everywhere, on everything, all the time . They have shifted from tracking the things we do on networks, to things we do anywhere, to recording biometric markets of our internal states. They provide the fuel for the other 4 technologies.
• AI and Deep Learning Algorithms: In September 2017 Vladamir Putin predicted, ‘…. Artificial Intelligence is the future for all humankind. …..Whoever becomes leader in this sphere, becomes leader of the world.’ In 2020. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, predicted that AI would be as consequential to human development as fire and the wheel. Why?

  These technologies predict behavior and increasingly create behavior. They learn and improve relentlessly. They make better decisions than humans in an increasing number of contexts. They are unconstrained by moral boundaries.

• Neuroscience and the Human Operating System: The technologies enable us to develop a rigorous understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the Human Operating System – our strengths and our biases. The understanding enables us to move from predicting to influencing to controlling through fine grained understanding of the power of intermittent reinforcement, narrative coherence, social fear etc. These tools become particularly powerful in conjunction with the reach and scale of our data and AI.
• Gene Editing: In the last few years we have reached developed the capability to potentially edit the building blocks of life and change many of the inherent characteristics of living organism. The core technology has been validated and proved its efficacy with the development of the BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. The technology can also be used to redesign human capabilities and strengths. In some ways the biotech industry can serve as an early model of self-imposed constraints on certain types of uses – even when they serve the narrow interests of their creators.
• Blockchain based technologies: These technologies have completely flipped the centralized model of trust and control that underpins many of our core institutions. Companies are issuing their own currencies, enabling distributed autonomous governance processes, enabling self-enforcing contracts, creating new forms of value capture (NFT’s for example) and, most of all, moving the provision of trust from institutions and governments to network protocols that have no central authority. They challenge the core notions of brand value, scale, regulatory guardrails, hierarchy, incentives etc.

By the end of the seminar students should have a basic understanding of how these technologies work, how fast they are evolving, how they interact with each other and how they intersect with the problems of climate change and demographic shifts.

We will develop a limited set of hands-on exercises that enable students to experience the power of these approaches. For example, students could be asked to develop an AI model for detecting a disease, create deep fakes or train a computer to analyze an HBS case. Students could also create their own currency by launching a crypto token or spend time with an emotion-hacking bot or observe the process of using CRISPR to change biology.

2. Apply to current problems: How will these technologies affect our roles as customers, managers, leaders, investors and citizens? The class discussions will use case studies to examine the choices that are being made by CEO’s today. We will use cases that illustrate the how early business model, governance and financing choices constrain or amplify choices companies have (Facebook, Twitter, Uniswap).We will also look at a few early stage companies and discuss how their business model choices could affect their impact on society. What could go right? What could go wrong? How well do our existing processes and incentives lead us to good outcomes for the individual, firm and society?

3. Explore Implications: What are the individual competencies and institutional structures we need to develop? How will these technologies interact with each other? How can these new capabilities be used to address the challenges of climate change and demographic shifts? What ethical or professional boundaries should we consider for the ‘business professional’ (similar to the professional codes or lawyers or medical professionals) as we give businesses these gargantuan powers. The final project is likely to be an assessment of what the leadership challenges will be in 2032? What frameworks can students create to navigate the capabilities and risks of these techgnology capabilities and trends.?

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