April 7 was the date for the 7th lecture in the “Modern Science, Technology and Your Love of Country” lecture series at Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech). Dean Chen Yuehong of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences gave a lecture about “Technology and Humanities in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” in which he gave his thoughts on the relationship between artificial intelligence and humanities. Director Wang Dejun of the Political Education and Research Center was the host for the lecture.
Dean Chen Yuehong said that artificial intelligence will be a critical driving force in the Fourth Industrial Revolution and will come together with the liberal arts in three levels of content, ethics and innovation.
In terms of content, AI requires the liberal arts to provide content in forms such as WeChat articles, news, games, chess, images, poetry, novels, movies and various short videos. Regardless of the type of AI, the content provided to AI has value.
From an ethical perspective, science and technology is a double-edged sword. The work of artificial intelligence has been a serious ethical issue from the very beginning as well as covering matters of law and aesthetics. Dean Chen Yuehong spoke about his concerns relating to algorithms and AI programs. He went into detail about how data-heavy and algorithm-influenced attitudes would inhibit social development, making society less diverse and individualistic.
When he spoke about innovation, Dean Chen Yuehong talked about the importance of creating a vision of liberal arts knowledge that creates critical capital and productivity in this new era in AI. This new form of capital is, in some ways, more valuable than traditional definitions of capital. In his comparison of success and failure of Apple and Nokia against the global influence of William Shakespeare and Harry Potter, Dean Chen Yuehong said that the creativity displayed by the cultural economy is vital to generating cultural wealth within the Fourth Industrial Revolution. He also pointed out that robots are now writing news and stories, citing a poem by Microsoft’s Xiaobing (or Little Ice) including lines like “that frog is in the shallow water; she married many colors in the world.”
In an era of AI, we are required to have backgrounds in both liberal arts and scientific knowledge with innovative thinking. Dean Chen Yuehong said that many innovations in AI and liberal arts are the result of deep connection between AI and humanities. He encouraged students to seize the opportunity to move towards a new era of AI and liberal arts integration, in order to become leaders of a new generation.
