Prof. Shaker A. Zahra

The advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has raised expectations worldwide of an era of great prosperity and economic and social progress. AI promises to revolutionize every major sector of the global economy and create new industries. It also promises to alter how we live, work, collaborate, and even think. AI can also foster social connections across different classes. Yet, concern arises about job displacement, privacy invasion, and biases embedded in AI systems affecting decision-making in hiring, lending, and judicial processes. Moreover, there's worry about AI deepening societal inequalities, concentrating economic power, and impacting mental health by potentially reducing face-to-face interactions and human autonomy. Military AI development also raises ethical concerns regarding autonomous weapons and their unintended consequences in warfare. As a result, in my presentation I will highlight several paradoxes that emerge from the growing use of AI such as rising productivity versus job displacement, the potential to reduce inequality versus exacerbating access gaps, and the tension between ethical considerations and efficiency in decision-making. Additional paradoxes encompass human-machine balance, privacy versus personalization, AI-driven dependency, unemployment versus skill gap, regulation versus innovation, and the challenge in eliminating biases from AI systems due to inherent biases in training data. I will discuss these complexities which underscore the intricate societal implications of AI's advancement.

Shaker A. Zahra is Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship and Robert E. Buuck Chair and at Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota. His research studies entrepreneurship and new firm strategy in global technology and science industries, technology strategy by new firms vs. incumbents in new industries, and emergence of new organizational forms in ecosystems. Widely published in leading academic journals, Zahra is among the most highly cited in the field management. He is a Fellow in the Academy of Management, Academy of International Business, a Research Fellow in the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers, and several other organizations. He received the Academy of Management Entrepreneurship Division's award in recognition of his "creative and impactful contributions to entrepreneurship research." His teaching has also received "best teacher of the year" in the MBA and the Mentor Award from the Entrepreneurship Division of Academy of Management for his work with doctoral students. At the University of Minnesota, Professor Zahra served as department chair, academic director of the Holmes Entrepreneurship Center, and co-founding director of the university-wide Center for Integrative Leadership. At Tongji, he was the Overseas Director for the Center for Innovation and New Ventures. He was the academic director of the Babson Conference for Entrepreneurship and the Chair of the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management. He served on multiple editorial boards in different capacities. His service and outreach contributions have received several awards.