Will humanities majors disappear due to AI? | Fortune

At this point, generative artificial intelligence needs no introduction. Its capabilities, its ability to move millions and millions of euros on the market and its huge debates are facts that speak for themselves. However, there are still questions of great importance that need to be resolved. Maybe…

At this point, generative artificial intelligence needs no introduction. Its capabilities, its ability to move millions and millions of euros on the market and its huge debates are facts that speak for themselves. However, there are still questions of great importance that need to be resolved. One of them is its possible impact on the labor market. Like any major technological revolution, its arrival poses a direct threat to existing jobs. Like no other previous technological revolution, with its ability to communicate, write, analyze data or illustrate, it is targeting jobs that seemed meant only for humans. At first glance, the question is how many and what kind of jobs can be replaced. Ultimately, the debate centers on whether the new context will lead to the decline of entire branches of knowledge.

Earlier this year, Nobel Prize-winning economist Christopher Pissarides said that in an increasingly technological world, the humanities in general, and human-centered professions in particular, would be the clear winners of this revolution. To support his argument, Pissarides said that AI can learn to program, but it cannot imagine and has no empathy or creativity. In the same vein, various experts consulted for this article have noted that humans are the bulwark against the advent of AI, but not everyone sees it that way, nor is early evidence in this direction.

In summing up the damage that literature, science or technical knowledge can cause, Valentin Bote, director of the Randstad Research Center, turns to the original situation. “It is reasonable to assume that computer science, mathematics and engineering professions will continue to lead the way in this environment. In comparison, humanities professions already had lower starting job opportunities. A graduate of one of these technical disciplines has greater job prospects than a graduate of the humanities. This is reality today, it was five years ago, and we believe that this will continue in five years,” says the expert.

In the early stages of this revolution, reality proves that Bothe is right and Pissarides is wrong. A recent report from the Bank of Spain noted that companies whose occupations were more exposed to developments in robotics and artificial intelligence increased the number of employees more than those that were less exposed. How can it be. “A possible explanation for these results is that companies that automate are more productive and competitive, so they can lower the price of their products and therefore gain market share, so their demand for labor increases,” experts say. monetary organ.

However, according to the Bank of Spain, given the unusual range of AI capabilities and the new ability to replace skilled jobs, “it is possible that the limited empirical evidence available to date on the impact of robotics and AI on the labor market does not fully reflect the changes that will be observed in the near future “

In other words. Neither the Bank of Spain nor anyone else is entirely clear on the scale of the real impact and whether it will have a greater impact on the humanities or sciences. Perhaps the problem is the lens through which it is analyzed. It may be worth looking further to see the impact on the humanities.

New classification

“Society starts from a very wrong concept when it divides knowledge into science and literature,” says philosopher and professor Eduardo Infante, adding that although this division is everywhere and imprinted on us, knowledge is actually something transversal, and This is precisely what artificial is. intelligence works best at the most specific tasks. This last element is key.

Deloitte in its report What is generative AI and what is its likely impact on people’s jobs?, divided the jobs that were most likely to be affected not by the type of career they were associated with, but by their nature. Their analysis yielded seven categories: routine physical work, non-routine physical work, routine intellectual work, non-routine intellectual work, social work, creative work and data analysis work. The consulting firm concluded that ordinary intellectuals and data scientists will bear the brunt.

In line with Deloitte’s vision, Antonio Luis Flores Galea, Advisor to the European Commission on Artificial Intelligence and author infinite mindwarns that both the job opportunities created by AI and those destroyed will be distributed across the learning spectrum. This is not about the natural sciences or humanities. It depends on whether what is being done is repeated or not. The more repetitions, the worse.

Weaving lessons on a loom

A priori, the translator (literature) and the programmer (science/technology) have no special relationship with each other, but they agree on one thing: both can fall – to a greater or lesser extent – into the category of repetitive intellectual work, one of those that Deloitte called a threat .

“Translation will most likely disappear. But the software developer that is currently outsourced to low-cost countries could disappear because AI will take over the code development,” Flores argues. This is not the first time a profession has disappeared. “The elevator operator disappeared, and so did the cashier at the cinema. The intercom almost erased the figure of the doorman. There have already been layoffs in the media to replace journalists with artificial intelligence,” Infante recalls.

Another option is that the profession of translator or programmer and many other similar professions will not disappear, but are called upon disappear just like they are nowbut this does not mean complete extinction.

Bote gives an example to help understand this concept: the first is looming on the horizon. “When the loom arrived, what happened in the textile workshop? The number of workers was reduced as ten people were working on the loom. Where there used to be ten employees, there was a loom and an operator. What ended up happening? By producing fabric at a higher rate, the market opened up because the price of fabric fell. After some time, this workshop already had ten looms and ten operators,” he compares with an argument reminiscent of that of the Bank of Spain.

In the style of the loom, translators, instead of translating languages ​​from human to human, may end up translating what a person wants to order from the machine. What can happen to programmers, David Claramunt, a workforce planner at Banco Sabadell and originally a programmer, explained at the HR Evolution event: “There are jobs that are the same now, but in the future they will be different. In programming, there may be a shift from web programmers and systems programmers to systems trainers who program,” he predicts. “I don’t believe that in five years we will live in a world in which there will be more translators than programmers,” Bote concludes.

Which career should you choose?

If in normal circumstances choosing a career path is not easy, then in such an environment with such high uncertainty due to AI, the complexity a priori increases even more. A priori.

Bothe recommends considering job opportunities and believes technology and science have a bright future. He is by no means against a person choosing a career in the humanities, but believes that if he chooses to do so, he should be aware that he will likely have a more challenging career path ahead of him. “What worries me is that the only thing you have to do is learn what you want. This decision must be made taking into account all available information and consideration of the consequences,” he says.

Flores believes that we need to look at ourselves and not just think about university, since vocational training also opens up access to professions that are also unlikely to be replaced by AI. Infante advises to follow your passion.

For his part, Raúl Gómez Pua, an expert in innovation, technology strategy and digital transformation in the financial sector, joins the philosophers and Pissarides. “AI will be able to diagnose cancer better, but 100% of patients will want a person to tell them everything, not a machine. We need human skills. We come from a society where there is hyper-specialization. We have spent decades in which training and professional opportunities have been hyper-specialized. I believe that this was contrary to our nature and that this will change. None of us will have a job for life. It’s better to have a holistic vision of life and knowledge than something over-specialized,” he defends.

Cristina Pelaez, Lehner’s human resources director, favors balance. “I advise them to consider three factors. Let them see what they like, what they are good at, and what society demands. From there they have to make decisions, but without going crazy. Knowing that as long as they work and gain knowledge and skills, they can do whatever they want. The important thing is that they have a utility knife because things can change,” he suggests. Everyone agrees that choosing a direction is more difficult, but changing it is also easier.

Infante reflects on how many jobs are at risk from AI. Encryption is difficult because it depends on more than just that. “AI is going to eliminate jobs. This can be positive or negative. Whether this is good or bad will depend on the people.” Whether AI will lead to job losses or reductions in working hours without loss of wages depends on people, not AI.

Future employment opportunities in humanitarian positions may be in doubt. This may also be true for scientific positions. But amid such uncertainty, there are two certainties. First. If the humanities cease to exist, Infante says, it will ultimately be the fault of humans, not AI. Second. If the humanities ceased to exist, the world would become an even more dull and cold place.

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