For context, I recently finished my undergraduate degree in History and International Relations. I do something unrelated to my degree at the moment, but eventually want to become a professor, and/or work within a research institution/think tank.
Genuinely don’t think I would be happy in any other role (I am currently on a temp contract for a marketing role and I feel any sense of joy leaving my body every day I log in).
I have been quite worried about the potential of AI to become “sentient” and eventually develop its own research capabilities in the humanities, or worse, universities offering “AI assistants” to students rather than having professors in office hours or as lecturers. Am I being crazy? Should I just give up completely and just accept I might have to do something entirely unrelated to my degree for the rest of my life? Even the book publishing industry seems cooked…
I would love to hear what others think about this. I am personally very scared…
Comments
Being replaced by AI is way down the list of worries, a few points below content being infiltrated by AI generated garbage and people letting it get through publishing checks.
I can’t really say about Humanities as I haven’t read much papers from that area. 100% relate with the happiness link with being a prof
Regarding the more “teaching part”, bad teachers can, should and will be replaced by other learning forms in order to benefit student learning.
Now, a good teacher, human, student-focused, committed, is just irreplaceable not in the eyes of the teaching body, but the students. There’s no better feeling than being acknowledged, help and accompanied by a quality prof. AI will easily distribute content, design activities, assignments, etc., but the question here is if that’s actually learning
AI in its current form as being pushed by Silicon Valley is largely a scam, something of narrow utility that is being constantly hyped because they don’t have anything else in the pipeline. It’ll be a very long time before its capable of doing more than generating photos of Shrimp Jesus and helping with some coding tasks.
If you genuinely can’t be happy in any “other” role than [whatever], you won’t be happy there either, and “AI” is the least of your problems. Also “AI” will not “become sentient”. Consider concerning yourself more with developing some adaptability in your demands on life. Good luck.