Dean's Corner: AI and the Liberal Arts
Artificial intelligence can write a sonnet, diagnose a disease, and even pass the bar exam, but can it understand justice? Truth? What it means to be human?
In the spirit of this month’s Alma Matters, I copied and pasted that prompt into Gemini, and here was Gemini’s response:
My honest answer: No, AI doesn’t understand justice, truth, or what it means to be human. At best, AI can help us reflect on and explore questions of justice and truth—but the understanding itself comes from humans.
(Those em dashes are always a giveaway.)
Of course, we already know this information. We know that our humanity is not a data point; that our emotions, morality, and creativity are not bound by algorithms. However, we also know that AI has transformed–and will continue to transform–our daily lives from the way we learn to the questions we ask about the future. We can criticize AI’s existence and limitations all we want, but as my colleague Amanda Dalola shares, “Spoiler: it’s not going anywhere.”
We know that our humanity is not a data point; that our emotions, morality, and creativity are not bound by algorithms. However, we also know that AI has transformed–and will continue to transform–our daily lives from the way we learn to the questions we ask about the future.
What role do the liberal arts play in advancing, understanding, or even scrutinizing artificial intelligence? Spoiler: the most important one.
The liberal arts equip us with ethical grounding to better comprehend, and call into question, the moral consequences of tools like Gemini. The liberal arts help us identify AI’s hidden biases and cultural assumptions, which shine a light on our own hidden biases and cultural assumptions. The liberal arts create space for our students to consider what can and cannot be automated in their learning and, in turn, how those decisions prepare them to be globally and socially-aware human beings.
Ultimately, we make sense of artificial intelligence by looking to the liberal arts.
This month’s Alma Matters feature showcases how College of Liberal Arts scholars are navigating AI with curiosity and purpose, including:
- Amanda Dalola, a linguist embracing AI as her language-learning partner and occasional life coach;
- Galin Jones, a statistician who says this college is the place to navigate an AI-driven future;
- Frederick Kennedy, a sound designer and composer, who collaborated with other creatives to create an avatar-turned-opera about British mathematician Alan Turing; and
- Several faculty voices across CLA sharing what excites (and unsettles) them most about AI.
Make no mistake, though, this month’s Alma Matters is not a package of stories exclusively about AI, it is a package of stories rooted in our shared curiosity and humanity. I hope you enjoy them.
