Organising for the next generation of competences

by Ahmed Bounfour

AI Competences 2035  is a forward-looking international research project which aims at defining the competences (and skills)  that organizations should develop and implement, in order to take advantage of artificial intelligence (AI) as a techno-organizational system and a general-purpose technology.

The project is designed as a global collaborative  and voluntary effort between scholars, executives,  and independent experts interested in designing the future for AI and the competences needed; its aim is  not to indicate how things will happen with AI and competences, but rather to identify zones of dissonance between players (enterprises, citizens, platforms, government) and how these dissonances (for instance shortage of competences, or disequilibrium of power) can be put forward and possibly and concretely resolved.

This is fundamentally a co-design project for the next generation of  AI Competences.

By doing so, the project aims at increasing future literacy of existing players for AI competences, in a context where AI as a techno-system is  transforming every segment of organisations and peoples lives.

Our AI competences’ taxonomy, as a starting point

Competences are defined as organizational capabilities. Competences naturally include but, go beyond the individual skills of employees. AI competences would then include the specific competences that organisations need to develop in order to tackle any AI-related issues, opportunities or challenges.

Based on the literature, we have developed a taxonomy  which we think will allow to address, and also to adjust, to specific contexts.

Our taxonomy of AI Competences

AI competences as key component of organisations’ human capital

For any organisation, the advent of AI is a major challenge to its human capital, i.e.,how to adjust the  number of employees needed ?  What kind of employee profiles are needed?  What types of competences are needed and, finally, What type of expected of value will be derived from these “resources”?.

Based on our taxonomy, our aim is  to address three major points :

• To determine the relative importance of AI competences  for the future (by 2035): domains of expertise, technology centric competences, cognitive competences, interactional competences, etc…  
• To indicate how globally these competences, as key components of the Next organisations’ Human Capital,  will interact with other components of value creation (the investment in AI per se, compared to the investment in physical capital or other intangibles for instance).
• To determine ad hoc roadmaps,and possibly supportive tools, to map the necessary evolution of organisations’ human capital.

AI competences’ future literacy : Five scenarios for the future

AI as a general-purpose technology is also a major source of transfer of  power  among organisations : this is due to  the migration of value creation,already noticeable everywhere, but also to the shift in control of resources,e.g., those related to science and technology,  and more importantly to intangibles. If nobody can “ futurise  the future”, we can at a minimum provide a set of scenarios, and identify their driving forces, so as to prepare for the next set of actions.

Here we propose five scenarios for 2035 in relation to the development of AI and AI competences through 2035:

• Innovative Worlds : under this scenario,  the key drivers are innovation as usual, which means the continuation of existing worlds, without any fundamental disruption.
• Techno-Plaformic World: This scenario privileges the increasing power of systemic platforms and their domination of the world in its different components (society, enterprise, governmental).
• Fragmented Worlds: This scenario privileges  the differentiation in path of evolutions of different  regions of the World (including in terms of power and regulation): Developed Asia versus Europe, versus the “Global South”.
• Chaotic, Post-Truth World: Here the focus is on a strong de-institutionalisation of the society, where the truth is no longer a dominant value (especially founded on science), but more on dissemination of untruth-based views. Under this scenario AI  development is both a support and contributor.
• Human Centred AI Word- Under this scenario, AI is used mostly for solving human problems, especially those of global nature , e.g., sustainability, health, poverty, education. Under this scenario, global collaboration among stakeholders (governments, platforms, NGOs, societies) is a must. 

Five scenarios for the AI by 2035

Three dimensions for analytical design

This project, with an international dimension (Europe, USA, Asia, Brazil in particular), is articulated around three complementary design and analytical dimensions.

1-A macroeconomic dimension

Our aim here is to measure how AI investment – ​​particularly in competences and skills – concretely impacts the productivity of economies and industries, particularly in the OECD area.

Interim results will soon be published online.

 2- A generic design dimension

The question posed here is the following : How  AI, as a techno-organizational system, will impact the demand for   generic competences  (domain competences, technical competences, cognitive competences , interactional skills, strategic-organizational skills, ethical skills and societal) by 2035 ?   A survey has been designed for this purpose, with the support of  our Foresight  International Committee.

The Committee is also supporting, in the definition of scenarios and the discussion of our proposal for the IA Competences definition, analysis and hierachisation.

Our International Foresight Committee

In alphabetic order  

Thomas Baudel	Research Director, Master Inventor	IBM
Marcos Cavalcanti	Professor of Informations Systems	UFRJ, Rio Janeiro
Omar El Sawy	Kenneth King Stonier Professor of Business Administration, Professor of Data Sciences and Operations	the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California
Ekkehard Ernst	Chief Macroeconomic Policy Unit	International Labour Organization
Dominique Guellec	Scientific Advisor	Observatoire des Sciences et Techniques (OST)
Xunhua Guo	Professor of Information Systems	Tsinghua University
Yasushi Hara	Associate professor at the Graduate School of Business Administration	Kobe University
Thomas J. Housel	Tenured Full Professor of Information Sciences (Systems)	Naval Postgraduate School, Department of Information Sciences
Keun Lee	Distinguished Professor, Department of Economics	Seoul University
Kiyoshi Murata	Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics and Professor of MIS at the School of Commerce	Meiji University
Clara Neppel	Senior Director	IEEE
Pernille Rydén	Dean of Education	IT University of Copenhagen
Nicolas Sabouret	Professor, Head of Graduate School of Computer Science	Université Paris-Saclay
Helena Tenório Veiga de Almeida	Director of HR, IT, and Operations, Member of the Board	BNDES

For the survey on the generic design of AI Competences 2035,

Please contribute  here

3-A Sectoral analytical design  

A sectoral dimension is developed within the project – around three sectors – Financial services, intellectual property rights and public services.

 The objective here is to understand concretely how, specifically for each of the “sectors”, AI is a techno -transformative system and how these « sectors » respond, or can respond, to this transformation through the development of specific business skills.

For  the survey for financial services  – please  contribute here.

For  the survey for intellectual property regimes.   Please contribute here.

An investigation will follow for public services.

The AI Competences 2035 project is led by:
Prof. Ahmed Bounfour, 
Founder and holder of the European Chair on Intangibles
RITM, Université Paris-Saclay
54 Boulevard Desgranges, 92330 Sceaux, France
Email: ahmed.bounfour@universite-paris-saclay.fr