Why the Humanities Crisis Might Be AI's Greatest Gift

1964. A damning report from the National Commission on the Humanities began with an ominous observation: "Increasingly during the past few years, concern has been expressed about the condition, in this country, of those fields of intellectual activity generally called the humanities." The 200-plus-page document catalogued familiar woes: meager funding, insufficient graduate support, scarce faculty positions, an education system obsessed with STEM.

Six decades later, we're still having the same conversation. But here's the twist: just as ChatGPT and other AI systems master technical tasks with unprecedented speed, the distinctly human capabilities that humanities cultivate are becoming more precious than ever.

The Eternal Crisis That Never Ends

As The Atlantic's Tyler Austin Harper notes, what we call the "crisis of the humanities" isn't a discrete 21st-century emergency—it's the latest chapter in a long-running academic catastrophe. The 1964 commission's findings read like a contemporary lament: dense writing that alienates the public, students flocking to "practical" majors, administrators questioning the value of liberal arts education.

Yet something curious has happened. While enrollment in humanities programs continues to decline—down 17% in the last decade according to recent data—tech companies are quietly hiring philosophy majors, literature scholars, and art historians. Google, Meta, and Apple have discovered that building human-centered technology requires people who understand humans, not just algorithms.

The irony is striking: as machines become more capable, human wisdom becomes more valuable.

What AI Cannot Replicate

Virginia Dignum's new book The AI Paradox makes a compelling case: AI's limitations highlight what makes human intelligence unique. Sure, AI can analyze every Shakespeare sonnet ever written and generate new verse in seconds. But it cannot explain why "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" still moves us after 400 years.

This is where the humanities excel—not just in processing information, but in understanding meaning, context, and the messy complexity of human experience. When Sally Jenkins describes how Harper Lee creates suspense in To Kill a Mockingbird even when readers know the outcome, she's identifying a uniquely human skill: the ability to understand and manipulate emotional narrative.

AI can write, but can it truly understand why we write? It can compose music, but does it grasp why certain melodies make us weep?

The Market Speaks

Despite the doom-and-gloom rhetoric, market signals suggest humanities skills are increasingly valuable. Netflix doesn't just need engineers; it needs storytellers who understand what makes compelling content. Amazon requires not just logisticians but anthropologists who can decode consumer behavior across cultures.

Even Wall Street is taking notice. Investment firms are hiring philosophy majors for their ability to think through complex ethical dilemmas and long-term consequences—skills that become crucial when algorithms make split-second trading decisions affecting millions.

The challenge isn't that humanities education lacks value; it's that we've become terrible at articulating and measuring that value.

Cultural Blind Spots

Different societies approach this question differently. While American parents worry about their English major's job prospects, countries like Denmark and Finland continue investing heavily in liberal arts education, viewing it as essential for democratic citizenship and social cohesion.

Meanwhile, authoritarian regimes often target humanities programs first—not because they're useless, but because they're dangerous. Critical thinking, historical analysis, and ethical reasoning threaten systems built on unquestioning compliance.

This suggests the humanities crisis isn't really about economic utility—it's about what kind of society we want to build.

The Measurement Problem

Perhaps the real crisis isn't in the humanities themselves but in how we measure educational success. We've reduced complex learning to simple metrics: starting salaries, job placement rates, return on investment. But how do you quantify the value of reading Toni Morrison, understanding the fall of Rome, or grappling with Kant's categorical imperative?

These experiences shape how we think about justice, beauty, and meaning—qualities that matter more as AI handles routine cognitive tasks. Yet our assessment tools remain stubbornly quantitative, missing the qualitative transformation that humanities education provides.