Artificial intelligence is often portrayed as a technological system that may replace human intelligence. This course offers a different perspective. AI is examined as a form of intellectual capital that extends human capability and reshapes institutions, governance, and economic systems.

Using a six-capital framework consisting of human, intellectual, structural, physical, financial, and ethical capital, the course explores how AI influences organizations, education, public institutions, and society. The focus is not only on technological performance but on the human formation, ethical governance, and institutional design required for AI to support long-term human flourishing.

Participants examine how AI alters the architecture of work, authority, and knowledge while remaining dependent on human judgment, responsibility, and ethical leadership.

Learning Outcomes

Participants will learn to:

• Understand AI as intellectual capital rather than artificial intelligence alone
• Analyze AI through a six-capital framework
• Evaluate governance and institutional risks in AI deployment
• Understand the role of human capital formation in an AI-enabled world
• Design AI strategies aligned with ethical and institutional responsibility

Course Modules

1. AI at the Crossroads of Hype and Hope

Explores the historical pattern of technological change and situates AI within the broader evolution of human capability and capital development.

2. Capital Architecture and the AI Economy

Examines how AI reshapes capital structures, authority, and organizational design.

3. Human Capital in the Age of AI

Focuses on human development, agency, and the role of education, families, and institutions in cultivating judgment and responsibility.

4. Ethical Capital and AI Governance

Explores ethical traditions, institutional legitimacy, and governance frameworks that guide responsible AI use.

5. Structures that Support Innovation

Examines how institutional boundaries and structural capital shape creativity, productivity, and technological development.

6. AI in Education, Government, and Civil Society

Analyzes AI adoption in mission-driven institutions where trust, formation, and service remain central outcomes.

7. Next-Generation AI and Human Flourishing

Synthesizes the framework and explores how properly aligned capital systems allow AI to support long-term human flourishing.

Module 1

The Post-Intervention Economy

Examines the historical evolution of market and government intervention, the limits of traditional policy responses, and the emergence of a new economic environment shaped by demographic change, fiscal pressures, technological innovation, and stakeholder empowerment.

Module 2

The Rise of Stakeholder Agency

Explores how households, workers, consumers, investors, organizations, and communities increasingly influence economic outcomes through informed decision-making. Participants examine stakeholder agency as a new form of decentralized governance supported by AI-enabled access to information.

Module 3

Micro Decisions and Macroeconomic Coordination

Investigates how millions of individual stakeholder decisions generate aggregate market outcomes. The module develops the transmission mechanisms linking decentralized agency, ethical preferences, and macroeconomic coordination.

Module 4

Ethical Capital and Competitive Markets

Introduces ethical capital as a strategic organizational asset. Participants examine ethical elasticity, stakeholder substitution, competitive differentiation, trust, and organizational reputation as emerging market signals influencing long-term performance.

Module 5

Capital Markets and Long-Term Value Creation

Analyzes how stakeholder signals increasingly influence investment decisions, capital allocation, organizational valuation, and corporate resilience. Traditional financial metrics are examined alongside ethical and stakeholder considerations.

Module 6

Organizational Adaptation and Institutional Resilience

Examines how organizations adapt to stakeholder expectations through governance, leadership, AI-enabled decision support, organizational learning, and institutional innovation. Particular attention is given to balancing economic performance with social legitimacy.

Module 7

Human Flourishing and the Future of Markets

Explores the human dimension of economic coordination through reciprocity, trust, dignity, stewardship, and long-term institutional development. Participants consider how stakeholder agency contributes to resilient markets that promote both economic prosperity and human flourishing.