Ever since the industrial revolution kickstarted the development of machines and led to the subsequent human dependence on them, economies have been driven by technology and the ability to create. Society has remained focused on consistent innovation and solving common, everyday problems via technology and creativity. As humans ventured into technological avenues, newer problems were encountered and dealt with using technical solutions arising from empirical knowledge and research. The arrival of language model artificial intelligence, too, in recent years is the product of a similar need to innovate and solve fundamental problems and maximize efficiency. Emphasis on technological innovation and human reliance on it grows with ever-increasing global competition to develop AI tools and technologies. Thus, essentially human traits and attributes are bound to grow proportionally in their importance in an increasingly digitized world. Marrying together AI and the humanities will enable humans to revisit fundamental questions about both—human nature and AI development.
The humanities and social sciences can provide a much-needed human-centric perspective on artificial intelligence and help their technical counterparts approach key problems with a pragmatic approach. As ethical concerns like those surrounding academic integrity gain traction, solutions from the humanities might help arrive at a middle ground that allows society to balance human intelligence with AI. Moreover, AI can also contribute to liberal arts education by providing key insights with analytics to address societal challenges and cultural analyses. The below sections explore the contributions these disciplines can offer each other in the run-up to a highly AI-dependent world.
AI Education and Humanities: Learnings for the Tech Industry from Liberal Arts Disciplines
Both AI and the humanities have significant inputs for one another.
Humanities education brings an essentially anthropological perspective on all human activities, whether it’s from the individual or collective level. Society is currently going through a period of both turbulence and rapid expansion in the domains of technology and innovation. As artificial intelligence develops at dizzying speeds driven by consumer demand and corporate rivalries, humans will need to address crucial questions on sentience, the nature of being human, and phenomena like emergence. While science does have frameworks to deal with these questions, its fiercely empirical and rational approach might not be sufficient to encompass the true scope of these ethical challenges. The humanities and social sciences deal with several disciplines that take into account the nature of humanity and what makes a human being in order to address fundamental challenges and define phenomena like sentience and consciousness from a multidisciplinary standpoint. Other important aspects of generative AI such as the creation of art and written material will also have to be addressed by liberal arts experts to define the nature and purpose of art in a world where artistic flair is being automated.
Similarly, questions surrounding concepts of intuition, instinct, and creativity are bound to arise, throwing up more subjective challenges to the development and propagation of artificial intelligence. Students enrolled in humanities courses can approach these topics as potential areas for research, given that a world in flux makes for an ideal environment to address difficult questions that challenge existing norms. In addition to society-wide challenges to AI adoption, the humanities can also provide potential solutions to ethical challenges in AI education. Considerations could involve the necessity of the anthropic element and its centrality in education and learning in a world where AI teaching methods and adaptive learning technologies are gaining prominence. Additionally, the humanities can also take up key points of concern like educational equity in a world that is rapidly modernizing, possibly making way for greater resource and knowledge gaps in societies.
AI Education for Enhanced Learning Outcomes in Humanities
AI can provide specific solutions for challenges faced by students and professionals in social sciences.
AI can provide the numerous disciplines that fall under the humanities with highly specific and proven tools to address challenges. One of the key areas of concern for several professionals and students of the social sciences is the preservation of cultural heritage in the wake of rapid technological and societal modernization. Add to the mix the looming threats of climate change, and the problem becomes far more convoluted and unpredictable. Artificial intelligence and big data can contribute to the preservation of cultural and historical heritage via means of indexing, digitizing, and organizing vast amounts of written and inscribed works alongside artifacts. The dawn of AI-backed search engines will further streamline knowledge-sharing and serve to enhance hassle-free access to important cultural resources. Tools like augmented and virtual reality can provide potent alternatives for students looking to interact with existing pieces of heritage for academic purposes. Data-driven and integrated approaches ensconced by AI in humanities will expose students to a wider range of opinions and allow them to assess their positions on key aspects of their learning journey.
The availability of AI and machine learning in education will also allow students from the humanities to closely assess and observe the direct impact of these tools on learners, helping them formulate a detailed opinion on the integration of AI tools within educational frameworks. Ethical research can especially benefit from these studies, where specificity and an empirical approach are highly regarded. Moreover, these studies will serve as the basis for future regulations and policies on the integration of AI tools in human society. Bridging the gap between AI and humanities will essentially lead to a symbiosis of the disciplines, ultimately bringing about solutions for both stakeholders while enhancing the overall quality of these studies.
What Lies in Store for AI Education and Humanities
Integrating the two seemingly distinct fields of study might produce seamless AI education protocols.
The unison of AI and humanities will pave the way for a more human centric-AI approach as the world continues to evolve and develop. Societal patterns, cultural relics, and technological advancement will be able to find common ground in a world where the humanities contribute to the development of artificial intelligence. This will also be aided by the reciprocal integrations of technology into liberal arts education. Education and technology might witness new approaches as more human-oriented perspectives are taken to integrate the latest digital tools with existing educational frameworks. The primacy of responsible artificial intelligence can be established using amalgamating perspectives from both the humanities and scientific disciplines, allowing society to have the best of both worlds. The social sciences will also be integral to reducing human and AI friction as the adoption of pointed AI and ML tools becomes normalized over time. This intersection of two seemingly disparate disciplines will aim to bridge the gap between a fact-based and humanistic approach.