Willamette University professor Tim Johnson encourages undergraduate and MBA students to think of using AI as a management task. To take advantage of technology, you need to design workflows, oversee resources, organize tools, and communicate those plans to your models through prompts. Therefore, using AI means managing it. As the creator of Willamette’s first applied artificial intelligence course, Johnson helps future leaders learn how to manage machines.
“When you’re a manager, you’re implementing some kind of goal and working with your team to achieve it,” Johnson says. “And that’s basically similar to what’s happening with artificial intelligence. You’re using a set of models to accomplish some purpose in your workplace that you wouldn’t be able to do on your own.”
Johnson is no stranger to AI. The rise of OpenAI’s ChatGPT was most people’s first serious introduction to artificial intelligence. But that wasn’t the case for Johnson. Long before large-scale language models made AI technology mainstream, Johnson began focusing on AI both through an interest in the work of early AI pioneer Herbert Simon and during his time as a predoctoral researcher at the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin, Germany. His interest in AI has deepened over the years through his research using computer simulations and big data to model public policy outcomes and human collaboration.
Now, he uses his deep experience and relentless curiosity to conduct research on big questions, such as how AI models respond in scenarios involving altruism and trust. These ideas shape his classes on AI for business undergraduates and MBA students, which exemplify the practical and comprehensive curriculum at Willamette’s Atkinson School of Management.
In Johnson’s class, students don’t just read about AI, they actually test models on specific management tasks and evaluate their performance. Students gain experience testing AI models across all areas of business and organizations. During the week, students test AI in business operations and examine how tools can automate routine tasks such as scheduling and process mapping. Next week, students will see how AI works in finance and accounting. Through classroom activities like this, Johnson hopes that students will not only gain the skills to use AI models, but also the ability to test performance and assess the impact of those tools.
Understanding AI as a skeptic, supporter, or citizen
Johnson doesn’t expect students to become computer scientists or coding experts, but he believes administrators need to understand the technical aspects of AI models. Through this knowledge and rigorous testing, students can learn which workplace tasks are suitable for AI and where AI may not be able to meet an organization’s needs.
“In my opinion, without some technical understanding, it’s very difficult to identify the use cases where a tool is effective or ineffective,” Johnson says. “Therefore, the exploration process must be built around testing.”
Many students come to class interested in how they can leverage AI to become more effective professionals, but AI skeptics are also welcome. In fact, Johnson says even the most reluctant adopters of AI technology can benefit from understanding how the tools work.
“As with any new technology, we should have a healthy skepticism of AI and be smart in our approach to it,” Johnson says. “By looking at technology with a critical eye, people will be quicker to identify its constructive and inappropriate uses. Therefore, we need people who are both critical of AI and willing to study it so that their skepticism becomes part of serious conversations about the technology.”
That’s a big reason why Johnson is so passionate about helping students think critically about the impact of AI. To build a better AI future, we need an informed community to participate in our decisions about this technology, before it’s too late.
“Soon, we will be grappling with the challenges of a world that is changing at a rate that is extremely difficult for humans to keep up with,” Johnson said. “AI models can be used in the AI development process, which means that as these models improve, they can participate in the improvement of subsequent models. I think this feedback loop is setting us up for the biggest challenge at hand for all of humanity: how to cope with a world of ever-increasing technological change.”
After taking Johnson’s course, students will be able to tackle these big questions one AI prompt at a time.
