#120—Matt Beane: Mastering the Learning Gap: Skill Building in an AI-Augmented World

Matt Beane, is an Assistant Professor in the Technology Management Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has conducted extensive field research with robots and AI seeks to uncover systematic positive exceptions that we can use in the workforce. His award-winning research has been published in top management journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly and Harvard Business Review, and he has spoken on the TED stage.  Curiously enough, 2012 he was also selected as a “Human-Robot Interaction Pioneer.” 

Matt took a two-year hiatus from his PhD at MIT’s Sloan School of Management to help found and fund Humatics, a full-stack IoT startup.  All this is testament to his passion for bridging what he calls the “master-apprentice gap.”  In this discussion, we dive deep into topics from his book, The Skill Code: How to Save Human Ability in an Age of Intelligent Machines.
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In this episode, Matt shares: 

• His concept of “the skill code,”— and the 3 Cs needed to ensure skills are able to transfer between humans
• The setbacks organizations could face if they don’t address the widening gap that is preventing upcoming workers from gaining skills from more experience workers. Imagine what happens if – doctors, lawyers, engineers, chefs, and other apprenticeship-heavy professions are unable to build bench skills
• What science and psychology teach us about how humans have traditionally learned and developed
• The steps business leaders can take to ensure that this novice-expert gap remains manageable

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Episode Timeline:
00:00—Highlight from today's episode
1:13—Introducing Matt+ the topic of today’s episode
3:18—If you really know me, you know that...
5:07—What's your definition of strategy?
05:50—Matt shares what lead him to the subject his research and latest book 
11:20—Learning skills through a three-tiered approach: See one, do one, teach one
14:48— Defining skill vs knowledge
16:38—3 Cs: Challenge
21:35—3 Cs: Complexity 
23:42—3 Cs: Connection
28:48—The impact of AI on capability building
31:41— Organizational strategy for skill preservation
34:12—How can people follow you and continue learning from you?
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Additional Resources:
Personal site: www.mattbeane.com
Link to book: The Skill Code: How to Save Human Ability in an Age of Intelligent Machines
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattbeane
Twitter: https://x.com/mattbeane

Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening.

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