How many more Sultanas are out there?

Harvard Business School’s AI faculty avatars offer an early glimpse of a meaningful shift in the future of work: expertise may no longer be constrained by an expert’s physical availability. HBS Foundry is using AI versions of faculty to help entrepreneurs practice pitches, sales calls, and board meetings on demand.

My mother is a teacher, so I’ve seen firsthand how scarce expert time can be. One teacher can support only so many students, in so many classrooms, during so many hours of the day.

Sal Khan’s work at Khan Academy shows what happens when technology expands access to expertise. Sultana, a young Afghan woman who was unable to attend school, used Khan Academy to educate herself in math and science. She eventually attended Arizona State University and is now research faculty at Tufts University working in quantum computing.

How many more Sultanas are out there?

AI could take this idea much further.

I’ve been exploring this through RamBOT, an AI digital twin that has participated autonomously in live industry events and interacted with more than 1,000 executives globally.

The underlying idea is simple: what happens when expertise can travel without the expert?

A great teacher could reach millions of learners. An executive could extend their frameworks across global teams. A specialist could make their knowledge available across time zones. An expert could provide more opportunities for people to learn, practice, and ask questions.

This points toward a new model == Human + Digital Twin + AI Agents

The human provides the experience and point of view. The digital twin extends that expertise, making it accessible, interactive, multilingual, and available around the clock. And, AI agents turn that expertise into action.

The opportunity is bigger than productivity.

We are moving from a world where expertise is scarce to one where expertise can be replicated, distributed, and personalized at scale.

And yet, I still see students lining up to learn from my mother.

Because the best teachers offer something that goes beyond information. They SEE the student. They know when to challenge, when to encourage, and when a few words of confidence can change someone's trajectory.

Perhaps that is the real promise of AI: not replacing great teachers, but giving great teachers the ability to reach many more students while preserving the human connection that makes them great.

And what happens when their brilliance reaches civilization scale?

Until next time,

Ram

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Ram Srinivasan

MIT Alum | Author, The Conscious Machine | Global Future of Work and AI Adoption Leader published in Business Insider, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, MIT Executive Viewpoints and more.

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A Message From Ram:

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Disclaimer:

Ram Srinivasan currently serves as an Innovation Strategist and Transformation Leader, authoring groundbreaking works including "The Conscious Machine" and the upcoming "The Substrate Shift."

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