For the latest on my Chair's page, I had the chance to sit down with Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Duncan Pritchard to discuss the dangers of AI and the importance of a humanities education.
Aaron James: Hey Duncan, did you see that Daniela Amodei, co-founder and president of Anthropic, the AI company, praised the humanities? “I actually think studying the humanities is going to be more important than ever,” was how she put it.
Duncan Pritchard: Hey Aaron, no I didn’t see that, but I’ve heard similar statements from tech-folk, who seem to be coming around to the idea that there are important skills found in a humanities education that AI doesn’t replicate well.
AJ: Do you think tech is seeing the importance of the specific kind of skills associated with the intellectual virtues, something which you’re a big proponent of?
DP: Yes I do. There’s an old Chinese proverb that a crisis is an opportunity riding a dangerous wind, and I think that’s the situation we're facing in higher education when it comes to AI. It poses a big challenge to our ordinary practices, but it also represents an opportunity to show how we're creating the intellectually virtuous people we’ll need in the AI age.
AJ: Interesting. Let’s start with how things are going to change with AI.
DP: The crux is that a lot of what we do becomes redundant when the skills and knowledge we teach can be offloaded to AI, who can often do it much better. For example, a few years ago everyone was learning coding, but you’d be unwise to pursue that now. That’s the crisis.
AJ: Right. Amodei, herself a literature major at UC Santa Cruz, notes the risk to STEM. She places the humanities on firmer ground. As she put it, “A lot of these models are actually very good at STEM. But I think this idea that there are things that make us uniquely human—understanding ourselves, understanding history, understanding what makes us tick—I think that will always be really, really important. And I think the ability to have critical thinking skills and learn how to interact with other people will be more important in the future, rather than less.”
DP: Exactly. This is the point at which the crisis becomes the opportunity in that it makes everyone realize that what we're really offering in higher education is not just knowledge and skills but something much more valuable, which is the cultivation of good (i.e., virtuous) intellectual character.
AJ: And studying philosophy is especially useful for that?
DP: I think all education, done well, does that to some degree, but this is something that the humanities, and philosophy in particular, excels at.
AJ: So there’s a way to stay ahead of the machines!
DP: On this score at least, yes. This is because the intellectual virtues are not the kinds of skills that can be offloaded to AI. On the contrary, these are just the kinds of skills that we're going to need in the new AI age that's fast coming our way. That’s the opportunity.
AJ: That’s a strong claim, that there are some skills that can't be off-loaded to AI. I understand you have a paper about this. Could you elaborate?
DP: I can try, though it’s a bit technical I’m afraid. The point is that the way we integrate technology into our cognitive processes—what is known as extended cognition—involves using our high-level executive cognitive abilities, such as the intellectual virtues, to co-ordinate the off-loading of lower-level cognitive abilities to technology. That’s how we use technology to make ourselves smarter. It’s also why the executive cognitive abilities can’t themselves be offloaded to technology.
AJ: Right, so if we get AI to do the high-level stuff for us, then it will undermine, rather than enhance, our cognitive powers?
DP: Exactly. The problem with AI is that it removes the need for the very cognitive processes that develop your intellectual virtues. Think about writing an essay. The AI can create this output for you, but the processes that go into creating this output—thinking, reasoning, reading, arguing—are all crucial for the development of intellectual virtue. If you short-circuit those processes, then over time your intellectual virtues will degrade. That’s why AI will make us all stupider unless we ensure that we continue to do the things that cultivate our intellectual virtues. On the positive side, however, if we retain our intellectual virtues, then we will make much better use of the cognitive resources that AI provides. So it’s important that higher education is focussed on the intellectual virtues.
AJ: Nice title, by the way—“ Why Technology Doesn’t Normally Make You Dumber, but Agentic AI Will “
DP: Provocative, I know.
AJ: Thanks, Duncan. This is encouraging! Hopefully our students feel wind in their sails.
Professor and Department Chair, Aaron James, works in ethics and political philosophy. Along with academic publication he writes books for a broad audience (e.g., Assholes, Surfing with Sartre, Money from Nothing).
Duncan Pritchard is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, with research mainly in the area of epistemology. He is the Director of the interdisciplinary Center for Knowledge, Technology & Society. He is also Director of the campuswide curriculum project, The Anteater Virtues.