Who needs the humanities?

We do.

In an oped a few years ago (I am unable to track down the post here for me to link it) I wrote that we will worry a lot in the future about various technological features that will become a part of our lives.  One of the examples that I mentioned there was genetic editing--designer babies, as we colloquially refer to them.  There are plenty of examples that we can easily think about, in which we need to systematically pause and ask ourselves how the new ways are redefining what it means to be human.

Of course, nobody cares for what I say or write; the story of my life!

While I didn't know how to articulate such concerns back when I was an undergraduate student, these are the kind of issues that led me to ditch electrical engineering in order to do what I do now.  The disconnect between technology and humanity bothered me, and it still bothers me.  In the contemporary academic world, to argue in favor of inquiring into the humanity is a losing proposition.  And this is in the US--it is way worse in the old country!

Philosophy departments are now an endangered species.  History and English are rapidly shedding their faculty.

While pushing science and technology, we forget that "science and technology aim to assist humans."  Yet, we do not want to understand humanity?  We ignore that "interface between humans and advanced technologies is a frontier where the humanistic perspective is indispensable"?

The author, who chairs the astronomy department at Harvard, writes that "the future belongs to the incorporation of liberal arts into science and technology."

A few contexts immediately come to mind. First and foremost, the study of ethics. There are major ethical questions regarding genetic engineering: Which revisions to the genetic making of humans should be engineered? Should we design the qualities of people that we wish society to have?

Yep.  Recall the oped that I referred to?

Or, how about this from the author:

Another area involves the implications of big data sets: How can we employ the vast information that is collected daily on people, and analyze it for the benefit of psychology and social science? Can we use these data to construct computer-based models that would forecast human behavior to guide policies or political decisions?

Recall all my posts on Facebook and algorithms and big data, thanks to which I even deleted my Facebook account a while ago?

Or, hey this one:

There are also existential questions about the purpose of human life: Will robots and AI replace human labor across the board from construction sites to scientific research? How will future economies adjust to a new reality in which humans have less to do? Will humans take a permanent “vacation”, and if so, what will the meaning of their life be if their dignity is not associated with mandatory labor?

The number of posts where I have worried about robots and what it means to be human!

Yet, inquiring into what it means to be human is not a major part of higher education.  Not even an afterthought.  What a shame!

Money, sex, and entertainment ... today's American university!

In an email to my colleagues, in which I shared with them an informative video, I wrote:

People pushing STEM while systematically marginalizing the humanities and the social sciences need to understand such a big picture, which is what the idea of liberal education is all about.  If any of you want to share this video with the institution's STEM-pushers, feel free; I have long given up on them.

I then wonder why I don't make friends ;)

Apparently there is one set of higher educational institutions where the humanities and the social sciences are alive and well. No, not the Ivy Leagues and other private elites.  There, the best and the brightest are feverishly in the pursuit of fame and fortune via Wall Street and Silicon Valley.

So, where are the humanities and the social sciences prospering?

I’ve only found one large class of schools where humanities enrollments have held steady: historically black colleges and universities.

Apparently most of the rest of us do not care about "crafting a philosophy of life."

 In 1970, seven in 10 students thought it was very important or essential to “develop a meaningful philosophy of life” through education, while about four in 10 (and five in 10 men) put a priority on using it to “make more money.” By the mid-’80s, these ratios had flipped. Of all the statistics on the humanities I’ve seen, I find this one the most depressing: For the past 40 years, the percentage of first-year college students who think highly enough of crafting a life philosophy in the course of their studies to muster the energy to fill out a bubble indicating as much has flatlined below half. It’s little wonder that so few major in the liberal arts in the end.

Across the board, there has been an ever increasing interest, a passion, a commitment, to one part of higher education: Athletics--football, in particular!  No scandal shall ever stop this deep-commitment.

Most of the big-time football schools are public--yes, taxpayer funded--like the U of Alabama, Ohio State U, ... an endless list. Many of them still referred to as land-grant institutions:

Each of these universities is a land-grant institution, established by the Morrill Act of 1862, which was sponsored by Vermont Senator Justin Morrill and signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln. Their guiding vision was to offer the highest quality of teaching, research, and service to communities across the country. These institutions have given our nation the greatest public-university system in the world.

Good ol' Abe will be shocked at how these institutions that he helped found have now become altars for entertainment, where coaches earn gazillion dollars, and scantily-clad women cheer the men on the field!

Do we have to then wonder how we ended up with this presidency, when even institutions that supposedly are about learning couldn't care a shit about life and truth?

Do women dream of having sex with robots?

If only more women would get into computer science and robotics!

No, it is not because I think they will create better sex robots.  It is because of the exact opposite--I feel they will spend less time on how to dehumanize us humans that male scientists seem to want to do by merging us humans with robots.

In one of the paired opinion pieces in the NYT, Sherry Turkle, whom I have referred to a lot in this blog (like here) writes that there will never be an age of artificial intimacy.  Why?  For a simple and profound reason that I often write about: Empathy.

Robots can some day effectively fake empathy, yes.  But, it can never be the real thing.  And the loss of the real thing worries me, and worries Turkle too:

We diminish as the seeming empathy of the machine increases. It is technology forcing us to forget what we know about life.
In life, you are struck by the importance of presence, of the small moments of meaning, the miracle of your child’s breath, the feelings of deep human connection. When you are thinking about technology, your mind is not on all of that. We program machines to appear more empathic. Being human today is about the struggle to remain genuinely empathic ourselves. To remember why it matters, to remember what we cherish.
These days, to be human is to keep one’s mind on the glory that one is.

In the other commentary, Andy Clark argues that it is a good thing that we are merging with robots.  Guess what word never appears in his piece? Clark has nothing to say about empathy!

While I have no evidence to back me up here, I believe that Clark's commentary fits well with the stereotypical male approach to feelings and emotions.  Even sex, which he writes about, is apparently not about feelings and emotions and intimacy.

If indeed these male/female stereotypes do feed into robotics, then that is one more argument in favor of recruiting capable females into computer science and engineering.

In the meanwhile, all we can do is reflect on what it means to be human, especially if we are not going to promote the importance of empathy.  We have one clear example of what happens when we lose sight of empathy!

If only the Central American immigrant children knew programming!

A few days ago, when I read this op-ed by a powerful trio--Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Sheldon Adelson--this insignificant commentator was so tempted to blog about it.  But, recognizing the limits to how much I can put up with the Rodney Dangerfield-like "I don't get no respect," I let that pass.  What was my problem with it?  In that op-ed, they argue:

Most Americans believe that our country has a clear and present interest in enacting immigration legislation that is both humane to immigrants living here and a contribution to the well-being of our citizens. Reaching these goals is possible. Our present policy, however, fails badly on both counts.
We believe it borders on insanity to train intelligent and motivated people in our universities — often subsidizing their education — and then to deport them when they graduate. Many of these people, of course, want to return to their home country — and that’s fine. But for those who wish to stay and work in computer science or technology, fields badly in need of their services, let’s roll out the welcome mat.

In the first place, this immigration op-ed seemed like the authors were making use of the big time immigration crisis at the border in order to promote their own immigration agenda.  The latest border crisis is not about engineers and computer scientists, but is about children who are rushing to the US for whatever the reasons might be.  The debate on the undocumented immigrants has nothing to do with the engineers and computer scientists and investors.  Thus, "Most Americans believe that our country has a clear and present interest in enacting immigration legislation" is nothing but a sleight-of-hand approach.

And then came this news:

In his first major organizational move since becoming Microsoft CEO in February, Satya Nadella announced Thursday that, over the next year, the company will cut 18,000 jobs — about 14 percent of its workforce. That represents the largest layoff in Microsoft’s history and a more aggressive cut than many had expected.

The global presence of Microsoft means that there is a good chance that many of the layoffs will be outside the US.  But, given that offshoring is to take advantage of the cost differentials, I would assume that a majority of the layoffs will be within the high-cost US.

Even as I was contemplating writing about this interesting juxtaposition of news stories, a politician beat me to it.
A Senator.
A Republican Senator.
A Republican Senator from the Deep South!

On the floor of U.S. Senate Thursday, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) delivered a scalding and sarcastic attack on the use of highly skilled foreign workers by U.S. corporations that was heavily aimed at Microsoft, a chief supporter of the practice.
Sessions' speech began as a rebuttal to a recent New York Times op-ed column by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, investor Warren Buffett and Sheldon Adelson, a casino owner that has chastised Congress for failing to take action on immigration reform.
But the senator's attack on "three of our greatest masters of the universe," and "super billionaires," was clearly primed by Microsoft's announcement, also on Thursday, that it was laying off18,000 employees.
"What did we see in the newspaper today?" said Sessions, "News from Microsoft. Was it that they are having to raise wages to try to get enough good, quality engineers to do the work? Are they expanding or are they hiring? No, that is not what the news was, unfortunately. Not at all."

My reaction to reading what Sessions said was:

Senator Sessions blasts #Microsoft's H-1B push as it lays off 18,000 workers I, gasp, agree with him on this http://t.co/uFJlZud9at
— sriram khe (@congoboy) July 19, 2014

The senator said:

Sessions' points were broad and didn't get into the mechanics of visa granting, but were clearly, though indirectly, aimed both at the H-1B visa and automatic green cards for foreign workers with Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, or STEM, degrees.

H-1B and STEM are not what "most Americans" have in mind when they think about immigration and the need to reform it, right?  But, that is what Gates & Co's op-ed is about when they write "Most Americans believe that our country has a clear and present interest in enacting immigration legislation."

Even this STEM is way overblown.  As I noted in this blog-post, less than a year ago, which became an op-ed later:

I was glancing through the September 2013 issue of IEEE’s magazine, Spectrum, and was drawn to a lengthy essay because of its title--”The STEM Crisis Is a Myth.”  I wonder how the STEM proponents will respond to the IEEE publication featuring an essay with a tagline of “Forget the dire predictions of a looming shortfall of scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians.”
The essay notes this--“What’s perhaps most perplexing about the claim of a STEM worker shortage is that many studies have directly contradicted it, including reports from Duke University, the Rochester Institute of Technology, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Rand Corp. A 2004 Rand study, for example, stated that there was no evidence “that such shortages have existed at least since 1990, nor that they are on the horizon.”

Oh well ... at least this post has provided me with a cathartic outlet.  The problem is now yours, given the mistake you made of reading this post ;)

Defending liberal education is merely more tilting at academic windmills?

As a new academic year begins, in addition to preparing for classes, I will also have to prepare to defend liberal education. 

Over the past few years, there have been increasingly loud chants in favor of professional-sounding academic programs at the higher educational level and, of course, STEM, which expands to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. They seem to rooted in a belief that liberal education is an old-fashioned idea whose time has come and gone.  That simply is not the case.

In defending the idea of liberal education, I typically rely on the resources at the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU,) which describes liberal education as “an approach to learning that empowers individuals and prepares them to deal with complexity, diversity, and change. It provides students with broad knowledge of the wider world (e.g. science, culture, and society) as well as in-depth study in a specific area of interest.”  

STEM and professional  programs that students pursue need not be in conflict with liberal education.  Yet, even within the academic environments, there is a greater push than ever before in favor of preparation that seems far removed from the traditional interpretation of liberal education.   

Instead of viewing education as a broad understanding of the world with its complexity and change, we simplistically reduce higher education to nothing more than a passport to jobs and paychecks.  It is within this skewed interpretation of higher education that we push for STEM as a panacea.

My undergraduate degree is in electrical engineering, though, by now, I have forgotten everything about partial differential equations.  The geographic move from India to the US was also a move away from a narrowly-focused STEM program in India, which did not provide us with curricular opportunities to explore and understand “complexity, diversity, and change.”

As an undergraduate, I was a student member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE.)  Though that membership ended with the graduation, old habits die hard.  I was glancing through the September 2013 issue of IEEE’s magazine, Spectrum, and was drawn to a lengthy essay because of its title--”The STEM Crisis Is a Myth.”  I wonder how the STEM proponents will respond to the IEEE publication featuring an essay with a tagline of “Forget the dire predictions of a looming shortfall of scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians.”

The essay notes this--“What’s perhaps most perplexing about the claim of a STEM worker shortage is that many studies have directly contradicted it, including reports from Duke University, the Rochester Institute of Technology, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Rand Corp. A 2004 Rand study, for example, stated that there was no evidence “that such shortages have existed at least since 1990, nor that they are on the horizon.”

Society needs scientists and engineers, and also plumbers and teachers and ditch-diggers and whole array of personnel.  The extreme fascination that we have with STEM is rapidly leading to a systematic gutting of the very idea of liberal education, and a misallocation of scarce budgetary resources.   

As if all these were not enough, a high school friend, who is now on the faculty at one of India’s premier universities, emailed me a news item a couple of months ago about a proposal to introduce four-year undergraduate programs in India, modeled after what we have in the US.  Well, modeled after what we used to have here in the US.  What an irony that while India wants to expand its higher education content, we in the US are actively exploring options that would narrow a typical undergraduate’s curricular exposure to the wider world--via possible three-year degree programs or professional studies.

It is not more college-level STEM that we need in the US.  Instead, we need basic scientific literacy among my fellow-citizens.  It is simply bizarre that the richest and most powerful country that the world has ever known also has huge numbers of people who have very little understanding of natural selection and evolution, or global climate change, or even the four seasons.   

Finally, as we look around at the world, the concerns and worries that we have are not always problems for science and technology to solve.  We need a much broader understanding to keep up with, for instance, why there are protests in Egypt, or how it is possible for Robert Mugabe to continue to mess up what was once the breadbasket of southern Africa, or why tens of millions gather at Kumbh Melas in India.   

While it might be a losing effort to continue to defend liberal education, as I often joke, Don Quixote is my hero when it comes to such foolish acts of tilting at windmills.  But then, Don Quixote is perhaps rarely ever a required reading anymore in liberal education!