Perspectives in Applied AI: Building customized education for all | Marquette Today

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The assignment structure for learning business ethics has remained largely the same for decades. A professor assigns a case, then all students read, analyze and write about that case. 

Hunter Sandidge, an associate professor of finance, identified a major flaw with that model: all his students are going into different careers, and responding to the same prompt does not capture the diversity of their future experiences. His solution? Build EthicsBot, a customizable AI copilot for his class. 

“Every week, students have to go in and have conversations with this chatbot I made,” explained Sandidge, who teaches in the Accelerating Ingenuity in Markets program. “They tell the AI about the career path they want to go down or a particular topic of interest. The AI will then create a custom ethical dilemma in that space for them to respond to.” 

This exercise is one way Sandidge is helping AIM move toward its goal of giving all its students a personalized education. 
 

A BOT FOR EACH CLASS 

EthicsBot is just one example of how AIM uses artificial intelligence to customize the learning experience. 

Another example is Venture Capital AI, a bot programmed by Sandidge to impersonate an investor during a funding presentation. Since a real-world investor would have an incentive to find flaws to make a case for greater equity control, Sandidge programmed his bot to be extra-critical of students’ business plans, pointing out where their weak points are and how they could be made better.  

Students utilize this tool during Sandidge’s Fintech Capstone class, which requires teams to make a company, value it and create a viable pitch. One group from his class has already raised $50,000 and is seeking more funding. 

“I’m constantly asking how I can use AI to allow every student to go down their own individual path. As an educator, I want to be able to handle a class of 60 people doing that and have no loss of quality,” Sandidge says. 

 
 
THE RISE OF SOFT SKILLS 

Sandidge sees artificial intelligence taking over job functions that were previously considered immune to automation sometime within the intermediate future. Knowing how to use AI will be as essential as knowing how to use a computer. 

In the early days of publicly available AI, there are skill differentials between those who know how to apply the technology and those who don’t. However, Sandidge believes that those differences will gradually disappear as AI becomes more essential.

That leaves the one thing AI has the hardest time replicating: emotional intelligence and interpersonal communication. 

“Soft skills like communication and social engagement will be the differentiators in a future where technical skills might become standardized,” Sandidge says. 

This is why AIM places a premium on teaching students how to network, interview for jobs and deliver in-person stock pitches, all of which make students more AI-resilient. 

“I want our students to be on the side of automation and not on the side of being automated,” Sandidge says. 
 

THE RISE OF AGENTIC AI 

The next frontier of artificial intelligence is so-called agentic AI: AI with domain expertise and tools to actually accomplish functions that will allow people to automate certain tasks. 

Sandidge gave the example of how these AI agents are analogous to job functions. Users could have an AI agent that acts as a CEO with domain expertise in strategy and planning that delegates work to other agents. This combination between domain expertise, tools to execute functions in the real world and the ability to intercommunicate is going to make agentic AI a formidable force in the future. 

“There are massive opportunities for automation to make these incredible efficiency gains, but the downside is that these things generally displace employees,” Sandidge says. 

A mix of soft skills and knowledge about when to use each AI tool is the best way to be able to reap the revolution’s benefits while minimizing the impact of its downside, per Sandidge. 

“People who know how to use AI will probably displace people who don’t, so these skills are essential.”