Ethan Mollick is an Associate Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he studies and teaches innovation and entrepreneurship. He also leads Wharton Interactive, an effort to democratize education using games, simulations, and AI.
When Ethan started his SubstackOne Useful Thing in November last year, he was planning on writing about a different management paper every post.
Then, in Ethan’s words, the arrival of ChatGPT turned him from “an AI-skeptic to an AI-believer.”
Over the last few months, Ethan has been explaining the rapid developments in the AI industry, documenting how he has incorporated AI into his teaching, and providing practical guides to how we can use AI in our daily lives.
Important Links:
- Ethan’s Substack - https://www.oneusefulthing.org/
- Ethan’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/emollick?s=21&t=DQDKFu8c3sCwY_4ql9wBrA
- 40 AI Use Cases: How Many Did You Know About? - https://infiniteloops.substack.com/p/40-ai-use-cases-how-many-did-you
Show Notes:
00:00 Intro
01:03 Main podcast
02:17 From AI skeptic to AI believer
03:53 AI is already disruptive
10:48 Unexpected AI use cases
13:44 AI is not a search engine
16:32 Prompt crafting is not the future
18:39 Is the centaur model the future?
22:38 How will AI impact education?
29:16 Will AI accelerate entrepreneurship?
32:36 The politics & geopolitics of AI
38:43 How to get unique results using AI
42:00 Using AI to explore liminal spaces
47:11 Speed-running the adoption curve
50:01 Can you teach curiosity?
52:51 The complex relationship between corporations and AI use
59:55 We have agency over our future
Books Mentioned:
- The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology; by Raymond Kurzweil
- The Iliad; by Homer
