Are You Ready for Robot Colleagues?

In the workplace of the future, "humans may supplement the skills of machines -- and not the other way around," predicts Columbia's Bernd Schmitt. This article is part of an MIT SMR initiative exploring how technology is reshaping the practice of management. Is the convergence between artificial and human intelligence, which once seemed like just a gleam in the eyes of computer scientists and science fiction authors, almost upon us? And if robots become as clever as we are, how will the role of managers change? Bernd Schmitt, the Robert D. Calkins Professor of International Business at Columbia Business School, thinks the convergence is coming, and that managers have to start preparing now.