Professor's View | Wei Hang: Is GPT+Meta the Intelligent Factory of Future Business Education?

Professor’s View | Wei Hang: Is GPT+Meta the Intelligent Factory of Future Business Education?

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SUFE MBA/EMBA

On December 19, 2024, the “2024 International Online Education Conference” hosted by the China Central Radio and Television Station and organized by Genesis Blue Ocean was successfully held in Beijing. The theme of this conference is “Empowering Education with Technology to Shape the Future”, bringing together authoritative experts in education, renowned principals, and outstanding teachers to discuss cutting-edge teaching concepts, educational technologies, and teaching models, jointly promoting the innovative development of the education ecosystem.

Professor Wei Hang, Secretary of the Party Committee of the School of Business at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, was invited to attend this conference and delivered a keynote speech titled “GPT+Meta: The Intelligent Factory of Future Business Education”.

Professor's View | Wei Hang: Is GPT+Meta the Intelligent Factory of Future Business Education?

“GPT+Meta: The Intelligent Factory of Future Business Education”

In his speech at the conference, Professor Wei Hang focused on how technology empowers education, what challenges it brings to the education sector, and what strategies can be adopted to respond to these challenges.

1. The Impact of AI Technology on the Education Industry in the New Era

In recent years, there has been extensive discussion on AI across various sectors of society. Notably, the recent November marked the second anniversary of ChatGPT’s release. Looking back two years, both tech giant Elon Musk and software pioneer Bill Gates expressed their insights on the numerous challenges that ChatGPT and similar deep learning AI technologies may pose to future education, economy, and security.
Among the many challenges, the education sector faces particularly noteworthy issues. In this regard, academia and industry have formed two camps. One camp advocates actively embracing AI and encourages teachers and students to leverage its advantages. The other camp expresses numerous concerns regarding the essays, assignments, and other outputs generated by AI. A considerable number of universities have even raised critical opinions about the use of such deep learning AI technologies for writing papers and related tasks.

2. Thoughts on the Application of Artificial Intelligence and the Development of Business Education

In this context, Professor Wei Hang reported on three aspects: the development history of business education, the impact of GPT and Meta on business education, and how to promote the development of business education in the future.First, the origin of business education can be traced back to 1881 when the Wharton School pioneered business education. In 1908, Harvard University launched its MBA program. The underlying reasons for these initiatives were indeed driven by the demand for specialized talents, especially specialized management talents, arising from the first and second industrial revolutions.
Thus, propelled by the first and second industrial revolutions, business education made significant leaps. In China, since the launch of the MBA program in 1991, business schools and their business education, as well as MBA education, have also achieved remarkable development over the past thirty years.The content system of business education basically covers five major aspects: theory, methods, practice, networking, and cognition, aiming to comprehensively promote the development process of business education.However, during this process, education inevitably faced constraints from temporal and spatial conditions. Just like the situation we are in today, the transmission of educational resources is limited to a fixed teacher imparting knowledge and skills to a fixed group of students in the same time and space.
Meanwhile, business education also faces another criticism: it is gradually disconnected from practice, has weakened in thoughtfulness, and lacks scenarios. Generally speaking, business education is often confined to the classroom, typically summarized as the model of “lecturing from textbooks and PPTs along with case studies” to cultivate elite business talents. However, this lack of practical engagement, insufficient thoughtfulness, and absence of scenario applications have become significant shortcomings in the current development of business education.
Therefore, in a certain sense, the education provided by business schools can be summarized as follows: individuals undergo a series of teaching, assessment, and assignment training to ultimately obtain an MBA degree, thereby stepping into society and making an impact. In the past, both in the business world and at the government level, MBA degree holders have exhibited significant influence. However, in the current process of business education, education faces the dilemma of temporal and spatial constraints while also lacking the integration of depth of thought and practical scenarios.
Professor Wei Hang stated that, looking to the future, under the guidance of emerging technologies, especially with the advent of technologies like GPT and Meta, it is hopeful to address the aforementioned issues of temporal and spatial constraints and the lack of practical scenarios.

3. A Dialectical Perspective on the Impact of Deep Learning Technologies like ChatGPT on the Industry

In his speech, Professor Wei Hang presented content related to the latest report on future career trends released by McKinsey: By 2030, it is expected that 30% of jobs will be automated; by 2040, approximately 70% of professions will face challenges from deep learning AI and may even be replaced. In this transformative process, deep learning AI technologies like ChatGPT have demonstrated enormous potential, as they can rapidly generate in-depth knowledge content. For instance, when we wish to create an artwork titled “Pointing at a Deer as a Horse,” such technologies can accomplish this swiftly, achieving efficiency and quality previously attainable only by professionals.Inputting a brief text description, these technologies can quickly search and generate corresponding content, taking up to a minute or even longer, in forms such as text, images, or videos. Given that courses also include elements like knowledge explanation, image display, text reading, and video playback, it can be considered that these technologies have broad application prospects in the field of education.If such teaching materials are input into the system, whether deep learning AI can assist us in creating the desired vivid presentation mode is a question worth exploring.
4. Analyzing the New Opportunities Brought by Innovations in Metaverse Technology
Professor Wei Hang pointed out that in this process, there is another technology that cannot be ignored— the Metaverse. The Metaverse provides everyone with a 24-hour, immersive, and seamlessly connected virtual world. This world precisely compensates for the high costs and immense difficulties faced in constructing the real world in reality.
The Metaverse can create a comprehensive space that is immersive, intangible, vast, continuously evolving, and available online 24 hours a day. This space precisely meets the needs of students in their learning processes, which are currently lacking. Therefore, it can be understood that: GPT brings a new role for teachers, while Meta presents a brand-new learning scenario.In this process, if current smart glasses technology can be utilized, it will enable seamless integration of Meta and GPT.
Thus, in this process, the future mode of learning may transform into a manner similar to current shopping or browsing the internet, allowing completion at any fragmented time, in any scenario, and at any location. This learning method can achieve a high degree of personalization and customization, meeting the unique needs of each learner.

5. Imaginative Thoughts on the Future Development of Education Combined with Artificial Intelligence Technologies

As the speech approached its conclusion, Professor Wei Hang presented his personal insights on the potential scenarios for future education, particularly in business education:
Future business education may face four predictions. The first, “Universal knowledge learning may be replaced by GPT and Meta,” implies that in the conventional sense, it may no longer be necessary for numerous teachers to teach the same course based on the same textbook.Although some may disagree, a dialectical perspective can lead to conclusions.
The second, personalized knowledge learning will achieve a high degree of customization, known as “thousand faces for thousand people.”GPT may have the capability to provide personalized in-depth knowledge for each learner and offer timely feedback during the process. Just as personalized recommendations have been achieved in current e-commerce, in the future learning service process, a personalized knowledge system will also be generated based on learners’ needs.
The third, teaching materials can possess both influencer characteristics and mainstream values.In this process, it is expected that numerous teachers with influencer impact will emerge, becoming top figures in the education field. This means that a large number of teachers do not need to be limited to imparting standardized, patterned language knowledge.
The fourth, for teachers in business schools and even in a broader scope, they will take on responsibilities that go beyond traditional classrooms.Specifically, content that can be taught through standardized classrooms, such as artificial intelligence and Meta technologies, will assist in achieving the integration of personalized and standardized courses.
Before concluding the speech, Professor Wei Hang once again emphasized: the cultivation of talent is not limited to classroom education; it is a practice-oriented, scenario-based, and immersive comprehensive process. Therefore, how to utilize the first classroom, second classroom, third classroom, and even fourth classroom to further shape students’ value systems, enhance their practical abilities, master learning methods, and apply theoretical knowledge will become the core task of future teaching and teachers.

Author’s Biography

Wei Hang, Secretary of the Party Committee of the School of Business at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Chair Professor.

Main research directions: Internet and operations management, intersection of operations and financial economics, management of new products and new technologies, service operations management, etc.

Professor's View | Wei Hang: Is GPT+Meta the Intelligent Factory of Future Business Education?

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Professor's View | Wei Hang: Is GPT+Meta the Intelligent Factory of Future Business Education?

Professor's View | Wei Hang: Is GPT+Meta the Intelligent Factory of Future Business Education?

Professor's View | Wei Hang: Is GPT+Meta the Intelligent Factory of Future Business Education?

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