‘The real problem of humanity is that we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology.’
E.O. Wilson

This course examines 3 recently developed ‘godlike technologies’ - artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain and synthetic biology- that have passed commercial viability and are on-track to change the foundations of business and society by 2035.

These technologies predict behavior and increasingly create behavior. They learn and improve relentlessly. They make better decisions than humans in an increasing number of contexts. They are unconstrained by moral boundaries. Are these technologies different from other ground-breaking technologies such as electricity, nuclear power and computing? What commercial opportunities and risks will they create for business leaders? What ethical choices will they force business leaders to confront?

In November 2022, the introduction of ChatGPT brought the potential and power of Generative AI into public consciousness. It was downloaded by over 100 million people globally over the next 6 weeks. Business leaders, regulators, and professionals wonder how this magical technology would affect their business models. Workers in both creative and other professional career wonder how it will affect their livelihoods. Governments around the world, are waking up to the power of the technology to disrupt the established order. Venture Capitalists have lined up to fund over 500 startups that use Generative AI. CEO’s of some of the leading AI companies have gone on record to say that this generation of AI could destroy human society. Others have said that it could create a global utopia by solving intractable problems like climate change, ending the need for humans to work for a living and bringing the cost of energy to zero. Why are normally balanced leaders taking such extreme and opposite positions?

At about the same time that ChatGPT was growing explosively the Web 3 and crypto markets, that had been seen as the big disruptive force for society a year earlier, were limping through a crypto winter. Companies that had been slated to restructure financial market declared bankruptcy. Leaders like Sam Bankman-Fried who declared the birth of a new distributed era where our notions of ‘value’ and money itself would be redefined, were under house arrest for fraud.

Further in the background, a quiet revolution has been taking place in reengineering life itself. Several companies have been using CRISPR-based technologies to reprogram living organisms, promising a new, unimaginable future where humans capabilities could be enhanced, aging could be reversed, new forms of life created, and new custom designed materials could be grown rather than manufactured. Companies like Verve Therapeutics announced the first human trials of a single shot cure for all heart attacks through a one-time change in a single gene. In most of these cases, business choices like market selection, financing strategy and pricing are critical determinants of the value of the technology to humanity.

The course will give students an understanding of these three 3 emerging technologies from the perspective of a business leader, preparing students for a world where technology creates exponential increases in capabilities, forcing business leaders to rethink business models and reassess the commercial and ethical choices they make.

We will explore:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) – Bringing the cost of cognition to zero (approximately 50 percent of class sessions): We cover the application of AI to a number of early and late stage companies and look at the ways in which AI can be used and misused. We look at foundational companies like DeepMind, Open AI and Anthropic as well as specialized companies like Videa Health, Metaphysic and Instadeep that are applying AI to more specific problems (Dentistry, Movie/TV production, Route optimization etc.) We also look at the power of algorithms to shape consumer behavior (TikTok), the misuse of AI in social contexts such as in the justice system and the industrialization of misinformation and hacking of elections. How can business leaders create great companies that enhance the value to society while earning a return for shareholders?
• Blockchain – Changing mechanisms for coordination and trust (approximately 20 percent of class session): We cover the under revolutionary promise of blockchain technologies to lower the cost of transactions and create new markets and new communities. Companies are issuing their own currencies, enabling distributed autonomous governance processes, enabling self-enforcing contracts, creating new forms of value capture (NFT’s for example) and, most of all, moving the provision of trust from institutions and governments to network protocols that have no central authority. They challenge the core notions of brand value, scale, regulatory guardrails, hierarchy, incentives etc. The classes cover companies like Polygon, Ava Labs that provide the platform for others to build new platforms for cooperation, companies like Uniswap that have the potential to restructure financial exchanges, Circle Financial , a company that is reimagining what digital money could be and Art Blocks a company that is redefining digital art and creating a way for artists to capture value from their art.
• Synthetic Biology – Enabling us to reprogram DNA and rewrite the code of life (25% of sessions): We examine the potential for gene editing and other forms of computational biology to change healthcare and manufacturing. By making DNA programable, these companies are creating a foundation layer for creating new materials, new therapeutic approaches and new forms of life that can be designed to solve particular problems (tiles that absorb CO2, bacteria that eat the microplastics in the ocean etc.) We look at companies like Twist Bioscience, that will design and manufacture DNA to order, Moderna that can use AI and digital technologies to create new therapeutics rapidly, and companies from Prof. George Church’s Labs that are pushing the frontiers of biology (recreating the Woolly mammoth from ancient DNA), extending health lifespans – ‘curing the disease of aging’.

We also look at feeder technologies that act as accelerants to the core technologies. These include ubiquitous networks that collect data on everything including what happens inside our bodies and brains, new models of computing that can be orders of magnitude faster than today’s fastest computers in certain calculations, Brain Computer Interfaces that enable us to augment our brains. On the negative side we examine and the business models of companies that are using these technologies to disrupt society through applications like Ransomware.

Approximately 60% of class sessions are case-based, and 60% of sessions feature industry experts and case protagonists. There are a few lecture / Q&A sessions to explain the core concepts and mechanics of the three technologies. There is a final paper in lieu of an exam.

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