The Human-AI Nexus: Optimizing Human Capital and Knowledge Management Practices in the Age of AI

Abstract

It is important to begin this conversation by acknowledging that our professional practice is embedded in an institutional framework, within which higher learning institutions operate. In this sense, the main purpose of places of learning like Nazarbayev University, a research-one institution, is to create, share, and apply knowledge. This entails a commitment to knowledge creation, knowledge dissemination, and then the application of knowledge for techno-scientific purposes. This formula drives the current creation of products and services worldwide. Interestingly, all this happens in a time-space compression and a consumer intensification which has resulted in the fact that every product becomes 5% obsolete every month. Yes: every product becomes 5% obsolete every month! So, in less than two years any given product has to be discarded and something new has to replace it. Therefore, the amount of innovation that has to take place in order for this logic to exist is simply mindboggling. With this as an operational framework, we need to ask ourselves whether libraries, in intensive research institutions, are applying and fomenting knowledge management practices that support the levels of innovation necessary for the industry to succeed with this pace of productivity or not...