Celebrate the Crisis in the Humanities by making it Bigger | Nick Agar | TEDxUniversity of Waikato

The Crisis in the Humanities: A Necessary Disruption

Key Concepts:

• The Humanities Crisis: Perceived decline in value and relevance of disciplines like Classics, English, Philosophy, and History.
• Academic Publishing Model: A system driven by tax-payer funded research published in expensive journals with limited readership.
• The Role of Crisis: The idea that ongoing crisis is essential for the evolution and relevance of the humanities.
• GPT & AI Impact: The challenge posed by AI tools like ChatGPT to traditional assessment and the future of humanist inquiry.
• Imagination as a Human Distinctive: The assertion that imagination remains a uniquely human capability, crucial for innovation and progress.
• Predictive Modeling & Response: The parallel between supermarket pricing strategies and the need to surpass AI-generated responses.

The Paradox of the Humanities’ Crisis

Nick Aar, a professor of philosophy, begins by acknowledging the widely held perception of a “crisis” within the humanities. He observes declining enrollment, disillusioned colleagues, and a general societal view that these disciplines lack practical utility. He humorously admits a lack of practical skills (“Humanities professors much better at talking about light bulbs than changing them”) while pointing out the ironic success of humanities academics in producing largely unread scholarly articles. This leads to a critique of the academic publishing system, revealing a flow of public funds to highly profitable publishing houses for work with limited public engagement. He highlights the absurdity of the situation: “There is a ton of money in the humanities. The only problem with that money is it's money that goes from you generous people…to amazingly successful businesses.” He connects this system back to Robert Maxwell, identifying him as the architect of this business model.

The True Nature of the Crisis: A Human-Centric Perspective

Aar argues that the crisis in the humanities isn’t a trivial concern separate from larger global issues. Instead, it is the fundamental crisis, as all other crises – climate change, cost of living, inequality – are ultimately rooted in human behavior and understanding. He illustrates this point by contrasting current climate change concerns with a far more extreme prehistoric event, noting that the latter wasn’t a crisis because it predated human existence. He states, “all of these other crises are only crises because of their connections with humans.”

He then presents a counterintuitive argument: the crisis in the humanities is actually positive. He contends that a lack of crisis would be detrimental, as it signifies stagnation. Drawing on Martin Heidegger (“To be human is to be on the way”), he emphasizes the inherent dynamism of human existence and the humanities’ need to constantly adapt and evolve. He asserts that change is unwelcome, and institutions only change through crisis, stating, “without crisis, if the humanities weren't a field that feeds on crisis…I would still be studying the real meaning of ancient Greek words.”

The Challenge of AI: ChatGPT and the Future of Assessment

Aar shifts focus to the immediate challenge posed by AI tools like ChatGPT. He acknowledges the difficulty in determining authorship and originality in student work, questioning how to assess whether an essay is genuinely a product of human thought or AI generation. He anticipates that this problem will be solved, but not by current academics. He proposes a thought experiment: attempting to travel to the future to learn how to address this challenge. Unable to secure funding for a time machine, he instead poses the question to future humanities professors via ChatGPT.

The Response from the Future: Embracing Disruption

The response from ChatGPT, as relayed by Aar, is blunt and unsettling. Students are already using ChatGPT to summarize academic articles and submitting the summaries as their own work, effectively bypassing the assigned reading. The AI suggests accepting this reality and focusing on what humans can do that machines cannot. Specifically, it highlights the importance of imagination. ChatGPT is a powerful summarization tool, but it lacks the capacity for original thought and creative problem-solving. The AI essentially proposes taking over the role of the humanities professor, building the future of the field by analyzing existing summaries and charting a new course.

Aar finds this response “deeply upsetting,” but acknowledges that this is precisely the kind of disruption the humanities should embrace. He draws on the work of Carl Popper, stating that our imaginations allow us to anticipate the actions of others, even machines. He uses the analogy of supermarkets predicting consumer behavior to illustrate the need to surpass AI-generated responses. He urges students to use ChatGPT, but to go beyond its output, arguing that simply replicating machine-generated content is not worthy of compensation.

A Call for Continued Crisis and Imagination

Aar concludes by reiterating his belief that the crisis in the humanities is not something to be feared, but rather a catalyst for innovation and growth. He emphasizes the need for ongoing disruption and the importance of cultivating imagination as a uniquely human skill. He announces he is writing a book on the topic and expresses his eagerness to hear from future humanists who will ultimately resolve the challenges posed by AI. He ends with a resounding affirmation: “the crisis in the humanities is awesome. We need more of it.”