Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Without the humanities, artificial intelligence spells trouble

Without the humanities, artificial intelligence spells trouble
Getty Images

Carney is a contributing writer. She also heads The Civic Circle, a member of the CivXNow Coalition.

Of all the things there may be to fear and loathe about Google’s new generative artificial intelligence tool, the most offensive is its name: Bard.


In scholarly circles, there is only one “Bard,” and that is “The Bard”—namely, “The Bard of Avon,” better known as William Shakespeare, whose writings are everything that AI is not: wise, witty, compassionate, and above all, deeply human.

There may always be disputes over who actually wrote the approximately 39 plays that comprise the so-called Shakespeare canon. But there’s one thing we know for certain: It was not a chatbot.

To name a generative AI tool after one of the world’s greatest humanists is ironic at best, and at worst belittles the true Bard, whose name the tech industry has now reduced to a marketing commodity, a gimmick to sell software.

The deeper problem, though, isn’t just the cheapening of Shakespeare’s moniker. It’s the devaluing of the humanities—of history, literature and art, and of inquiry, creativity and critical thinking—in every sphere.

Amid massive federal investments, the pro-STEM craze has swallowed the humanities whole. In the past decade alone, the college-level study of English and history has dropped by a third. In K-12 classrooms, history, civics, literature and the arts have been pushed to the margins as educators struggle to meet standards-driven testing mandates. Culture wars over what books students should read don’t help.

It's not that Science, Technology, Engineering and Math aren’t essential. STEM investments are crucial to American economic competitiveness and national security. And AI itself holds great promise for medical breakthroughs, disaster relief, industrial automation, and a host of other areas, including education. Some even argue that generative AI can be a boon to democracy, inviting new voices into public debates, and helping digest citizen opinions.

But if there’s anything the advent of AI has taught us, it’s that STEM is not enough. To unleash generative AI on the world with no thoughtful constraints or oversight would be to invite disaster on a scale we humans can hardly imagine. That’s why more than 1,000 technology experts have called for a six-month moratorium on the development of new AI systems, citing “profound risks to society and humanity.”

One need not fear that machines will end up controlling humans to appreciate that AI will be highly disruptive—to jobs, to social interactions, to virtually every global industry and institution. Those most at risk may well be the world’s “creatives”—the artists whose works new software tools may exploit without credit, the writers now striking in part because they fear AI will put them out of work.

Yet humanists are the ones best equipped to get us out of the AI mess. How can we ensure that AI does not invade privacy, facilitate fraud and extortion, intensify discrimination, fuel monopolies, and flood the internet with false texts and images that are impossible to verify? Answering these questions will take discernment, empathy, critical thought, imagination, an appreciation for nuance, a grasp of ethics and history—in other words, all the skills at the heart of a liberal education.

The full promise of AI will never be realized if we abandon the humanities—and our humanity—along the way. Even Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, one of the tech industry’s greatest innovators, famously celebrated “the intersection of technology and liberal arts.” There will be no easy answers to the regulatory, ethical and legal questions that the coming AI explosion will pose. But the key may be, as Jaswinder Bolinda recently wrote, to “ think like a poet.”

A poet himself, Bolinda recently took heart from the underwhelming, “jejeune” and “hackneyed” stanzas that ChatGPT3 produced when he asked the AI software to generate some verses in his own style. True poetry, Bolinda recently wrote in The Washington Post, “must be earnest, singular and unpredictable. … In a word, it must be human.”

The world’s workers, Bolinda argues, can make themselves irreplaceable by “taking classes in creative writing, music, theater, painting and dance; by studying and making literature and art, those allegedly pointless pursuits that our culture and our universities have increasingly neglected.” It’s the lessons learned in “creative enterprise,” as he sees it, that will enable us to invent “new and more humane ways of using technology to answer human concerns and solve human crises.”

It’s a point that The Bard—the true Bard—would have appreciated well. Shakespeare had much to say about the human condition—about love, envy, wisdom, folly, wealth, power, time, luck, evil and death. Of generative AI, he might have said, as Troilus does on reading (and then tearing up) a letter from Cressida: “Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart …”. Or perhaps he might have called, as so many tech leaders have, for a judicious pause. After all, as Lady Macbeth bemoans amid her descent into madness: “What’s done cannot be undone.”

Read More

Understanding the Debate on Health Secretary Kennedy’s Vaccine Panelists

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., January 29, 2025 in Washington, DC.

(Photo by Chen Mengtong/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)

Understanding the Debate on Health Secretary Kennedy’s Vaccine Panelists

Summary

On June 9, 2025, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), dismissed all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Secretary Kennedy claimed the move was necessary to eliminate “conflicts of interest” and restore public trust in vaccines, which he argued had been compromised by the influence of pharmaceutical companies. However, this decision strays from precedent and has drawn significant criticism from medical experts and public health officials across the country. Some argue that this shake-up undermines scientific independence and opens the door to politicized decision-making in vaccine policy.

Background: What Is ACIP?

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is a federal advisory group that helps guide national vaccine policy. Established in 1964, it has over 60 years of credibility as an evidence-based body of medical and scientific experts. ACIP makes official recommendations on vaccine schedules for both children and adults, determining which immunizations are required for school entry, covered by health insurance, and prioritized in public health programs. The committee is composed of specialists in immunology, epidemiology, pediatrics, infectious disease, and public health, all of whom are vetted for scientific rigor and ethical standards. ACIP’s guidance holds national weight, shaping both public perception of vaccines and the policies of institutions like schools, hospitals, and insurers.

Keep ReadingShow less
MQ-9 Predator Drones Hunt Migrants at the Border
Way into future, RPA Airmen participate in Red Flag 16-2 > Creech ...

MQ-9 Predator Drones Hunt Migrants at the Border

FT HUACHUCA, Ariz. - Inside a windowless and dark shipping container turned into a high-tech surveillance command center, two analysts peered at their own set of six screens that showed data coming in from an MQ-9 Predator B drone. Both were looking for two adults and a child who had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border and had fled when a Border Patrol agent approached in a truck.

Inside the drone hangar on the other side of the Fort Huachuca base sat another former shipping container, this one occupied by a drone pilot and a camera operator who pivoted the drone's camera to scan nine square miles of shrubs and saguaros for the migrants. Like the command center, the onetime shipping container was dark, lit only by the glow of the computer screens.

Keep ReadingShow less
A Trump 2020 flag outside of a home.

As Trump’s second presidency unfolds, rural America—the foundation of his 2024 election win—is feeling the sting. From collapsing export markets to cuts in healthcare and infrastructure, those very voters are losing faith.

Getty Images, ablokhin

Trump’s 2.0 Actions Have Harmed Rural America Who Voted for Him

Daryl Royal, the 20-year University of Texas football coach, once said, “You've gotta dance with them that brung ya.” The modern adaptation of that quote is “you gotta dance with the one who brought you to the party.” The expression means you should remain loyal to the people or things that helped you succeed.

Sixty-three percent of America’s 3,144 counties are predominantly rural, and Donald Trump won 93 percent of those counties in 2024. Analyses show that rural counties have become increasingly solid Republican, and Trump’s margin of victory within rural America reached a new high in the 2024 election.

Keep ReadingShow less
Hands Off Our Elections: States and Congress, Not Presidents, Set the Rules
white concrete dome museum

Hands Off Our Elections: States and Congress, Not Presidents, Set the Rules

Trust in elections is fragile – and once lost, it is extraordinarily difficult to rebuild. While Democrats and Republicans disagree on many election policies, there is broad bipartisan agreement on one point: executive branch interference in elections undermines the constitutional authority of states and Congress to determine how elections are run.

Recent executive branch actions threaten to upend this constitutional balance, and Congress must act before it’s too late. To be clear – this is not just about the current president. Keeping the executive branch out of elections is a crucial safeguard against power grabs by any future president, Democrat or Republican.

Keep ReadingShow less