AI and the Humanities

[poetryandwine]

Maureen Dowd’s column in the NY Times today is called ‘What AI Kant Do’. It is behind a paywall and I am always of two minds about breaching these, but I am not bothered if anyone else wishes to.

It is a fascinating plea for the importance of the Humanities from some leading STEM entrepeneurs - most prominently in my mind Daniela Amodei, a founder of Anthropic. She herself was a Literature major at UC Santa Cruz, the ‘hippie’ , grade-optional campus of the University of California.

Dowd discusses research that as AI takes over lower level skills, the relatively few who retain the ability to think critically are more prized than ever. She also talks with leaders in tech who are particularly concerned with developing emotional intelligence in their DC.

The upshot is that AI is changing things, but leaders believe that what makes us human, in the arts, sciences and technology, is as important as ever.

One of my issues with AI in the humanities is that human beings will lose the capacity for critical thinking. When chatgtp etc can do all the legwork, all that firing and creation of new connections between synapses and neurons will die away and the human brain will become a pile of mush.

That’s why people who resist this temptation and retain the ability to think deeply are becoming hugely desirable on the job market!

I’m an English Literature PhD student and the career landscape is still pretty bleak out there given the situation across HE. I believe that my skills are valuable, but practically, post doctoral positions are scarce as departments are closed and fewer and fewer young people take English at A level
and then university, seeing it as poor value.

I think it also has implications for the English education system, with its tendency (partly shaped intentionally and unintentionally by university admissions policy and course structures) to encourage subject specialisation and 'narrowing' from GCSE option and A level choices onwards.

STEM leaning students need exposure to skills nurtured by the study of humanities and humanity students benefit if they maintain exposure to numerical analysis. Whilst she is a Lit major, I suspect Dowd has been able to move within and across the world of words and the world of numbers with some ease.

Of course this is true. Eventually, the most valuable skill will be the only one AI can’t “fake”: life-based human experience, like how to communicate in emojis, when they’re appropriate and what they mean. Remember, it’s artificial intelligence. Only you have actual intelligence. And I don’t care if you graduated uni 😂 I care if you’re a cunt. 🤨 —> AI allows me to select this emoji by typing “eyebrow” but you know what it actually means. It’s a language we share. The Chinese are not worried about AI ending humanity 😂 If you earn £6000 a year, you’re on benefits, and you know who loves you, then you’re still smarter and better off than many billionaires. Billionaires are going to end soon. AI will show how detrimental to the world they are, because they don’t prioritize people who have REAL intelligence and they don’t give back what they should.

Who do you trust more - your mum or Elon Musk? Elon Musk won’t lend you £5 at 0% interest to make your life better; your mum would (if she has £5 to spare; I know so many don’t, and you’re still wonderful mums).

What is completely disgusting to me is that I interacted with a bot yesterday, and its creator designed it to say “neurodivergent =) 23/f” in its bio so that people wouldn’t question it being AI. Yes, because being 23, female, and neurodivergent makes you no better than AI? Fuck you, whoever that programmer was.

Nah, this is an intelligence question, not an education question. You need however much intelligence will allow you to know your true value and communicate with others. We have enforced education because otherwise we’d have enforced child labour (the work, not the political party 😂).

I wish the British, particularly the English, did not specialise so narrowly so young. I taught uni in the US before moving here and I think the general education requirements are beneficial for most students, in particular for STEM students. The quality of student writing in my discipline, both UG and PG, was much higher there.

Many English and History PhDs also maintain gainful employment in this system!

Dowd’s interviewees think that more students will turn back to the Humanities in the best way - not so that AI will churn out their assignments, but to develop the analytical skills it lacks and which are becoming monetised. But everyone thinks it will take a while. I hope you and your colleagues survive the wait.

I agree the cross fertilisation should go both ways. It’s fine to have intellectual preferences, but people should attain a certain level of comfort with basic maths and scientific concepts, just as with literacy. You can’t be an informed citizen of the world (or grocery shopper) without this. No one brags about bring unable to read.

If you are lucky enough to attend university, I see an intuitive value in engaging with some big ideas from outside your discipline. Now research is showing that struggling intellectually actually increases brain power; one of Dowd’s interviewers, a professor, discusses this. He worries that today’s students are losing this opportunity thanks to AI.

Do you not think that your intelligence can be developed?

Absolutely agree that struggling intellectually improves brain power. At primary level they have the ‘learning pit,’ (image attached). In my PhD role, I often wrestle with concepts and then have a ‘falling into place’ realisation, generally when not working and out enjoying a run or similar. Processing falls into the unconscious where it is worked out more deeply I’ve found. The learning pit example shows deeper cognitive processing too.

I had mot seen The Learning Pit before. I agree with you - it describes the discovery process in most of my (successful) research.

Though nothing works for my unconscious processes like sleep - but only occasionally.