A Case for the Liberal Arts in the Age of AI

With the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence, it is almost impossible to keep up with the latest developments and changes that AI is bringing to industries and people’s daily lives. From the power of ChatGPT to produce polished texts to Dall-E’s ability to generate striking images in seconds, the progress of AI has been a marvel, if not also unsettling.

In my role as dean of arts and sciences at Eastern, Connecticut’s public liberal arts university, many of my conversations with colleagues swing between excitement about what AI makes possible and fear about what threats it may pose. We keep asking: What does AI mean for the liberal arts? What value do the humanities, arts and social sciences bring when the future seems dominated by data and algorithms?

My professional life has been devoted to advocating for the liberal arts in higher education, especially at public institutions. I have always told my students that we don’t know what the future will bring, but we do know that we will need people who can communicate well and be critical, ethical, creative thinkers.

In other words, we need the liberal arts.

I have come to believe that we need the liberal arts in the same way as we always have: to prepare informed citizens to take responsibility for themselves and others in a free society. Now, however, that society is one where AI is prevalent, presenting a new set of challenges that require liberal arts skills perhaps more than ever.

Valuing the liberal arts in the age of AI will help us build a more human future.

It will be important for students to learn to harness the power of AI. In order to do so, they’ll need to evaluate different AI tools, assess the content and responses AI generates, and recognize biases baked into the algorithms and source information from which AI pulls.

Their liberal arts training and education will prepare them to use AI responsibly. Through their studies, they grapple with difficult questions. They learn to look at challenges from multiple perspectives. They practice historical understanding, ethical reasoning, textual analysis. They develop critical acumen that helps them think through problems carefully. They prepare themselves to tackle the questions we don’t even yet know that we need to answer.

In their book Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning, José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson write, “The best hedge against an uncertain future job market is the ability to think and adapt. The liberal arts will only become more relevant in the new era.”

Midway through a new academic year, I feel more committed than ever to the liberal arts mission, especially in a public higher education setting, where students from diverse backgrounds can access the benefits of the liberal arts in a way that broadens their awareness and hones such invaluable skills. The talents and expertise our students will thus develop will benefit all of us.

Now more than ever it is crucial to advocate for the liberal arts as we embrace the opportunities and challenges AI presents. The liberal arts will help us to keep the “human” at the center in an age of machine learning, developing students’ capacity to search for meaning, appreciate complexity, and ask questions that need to be asked. Valuing the liberal arts, in the age of AI, will help us build a more human future.