The Vital Role of Humanities in a Tech-Driven World.
The Vital Role of Humanities in a Tech-Driven World.
The Vital Role of Humanities in a Tech-Driven World.
Post by Eduvos, September 08, 2023.
Michael Dorfling, the Academic Programme Convener in the Faculty of Humanities shares how studying a qualification in the faculty of Humanities is more important than ever in this faculty feature.
Take a minute to imagine a hypothetical future where humanoid artificially intelligent robots walk among us and interact with us in all spheres of life. Your first inclination may be to focus on the actual robots themselves – the hardware used for them to actually walk among us, and the type of software used to make them interact with us.
Now consider the actual interaction of these robots with humans. Do they look like us, or have they been designed differently? Were they created to solve a specific problem, and are people using the new technology to improve their lives or the lives of others? Have they adopted the culture and customs of those around them, or have they created their own? Whose ethical systems were built into them, and how was this decided? Are they expressing emotions, and are they eliciting emotional responses from the people around them? Are people being friendly to them, or treating them poorly? How are they being portrayed in media and popular culture? Should we refer to them as he/she/they, or as ‘it’ (as we do with most other non-living objects)? Is there perhaps going to be a point where these robots are indistinguishable from humans?
Although this hypothetical scenario is not our current reality (and may never be), with the rapid rate of technological advancement it is perhaps not a terrible idea for humanity to start thinking about how we interact with technology going forward. Even if humanoid robots never walk among us, we already have no shortage of important (and often difficult) considerations when it comes to our current use of technology, and related complex features of modernity.
While it is important that people are learning how to create and advance new technology, it is just as important that people learn how (and perhaps why) we should integrate and use the technology in society. Besides this, the development and advancement of technology requires many non-technical roles too such as human resources, marketing, project and people management, data analysis, public relations, and many more. The humanities, then, are more important now than ever.
Humanities are academic disciplines dealing with people and communities, and all their related nuances. There are numerous humanities fields including psychology, communication, linguistics, literature, art and design, politics and sociology, media studies, and more. Apart from subject-specific knowledge and skills, as well as learning how to use technology in various ways depending on the field, studying humanities teaches you how to think critically, communicate effectively, and understand human nature. These invaluable skills are needed to prepare yourself to adapt to an ever-changing world.
In the hypothetical scenario I described above, it is quite likely that the future you imagined was based on a few works of fiction embedded in your memory. Perhaps if we ever do see humanoid robots walk among us, the designers might be influenced by imagined futures from film, literature, or other forms of media. Humanities fields are designed to produce graduates that have creativity and imagination, insight, mental agility, and analytical skills. Instead of only learning a set of instructions on how to do something, you learn how to argue for doing something, or why doing something matters, in addition to how to do it and how others have done it. This set of tools for engaging with the world opens a world of possibilities. You develop a mindset ready to adapt to change and uncertainty.
By studying humanities, you learn how to work with people, and how people work. You learn how to empathise with and understand others. You learn how to navigate ethical challenges, either by learning from the past, or learning how to reason with the facts in front of you. You learn about the importance of preserving cultural identities while addressing global challenges. You learn how to solve new problems with existing resources. You learn how to engage with new ideas critically, and how to consider not only what was said, but who said it, why they said it, and where they said it.
It was famed industrialist J. Irwin Miller who said, when describing the transformative nature of the humanities, that "It is the calling of the humanities to make us truly human in the best sense of the word." In a world built around people that are now increasingly reliant on technology, why not focus on improving your humanness for the benefit of society?
