Will the Humanities Survive Artificial Intelligence?

Introduction

Will the humanities survive artificial intelligence? It’s a question on the minds of educators, students, artists, and policymakers alike as AI reaches new heights. Recent breakthroughs in generative AI – algorithms that can produce human-like text, art, and even music – have ignited both excitement and anxiety.

In fact, The New Yorker recently posed this very question, bluntly asking “Will the Humanities Survive Artificial Intelligence?” and answering, “Maybe not as we’ve known them”​. That stark response captures the alarm in academic and cultural circles.

Across college campuses and creative industries, people are wondering if disciplines like literature, history, philosophy, and the arts – the traditional humanities – face an existential threat from AI.

On one hand, artificial intelligence promises to revolutionize knowledge work and creativity, handling tasks that once required human intellect. On the other, there’s a growing fear that these advances could render humanists obsolete or undervalued. Some see AI as the ultimate rival to human creativity and critical thinking, potentially usurping roles long held by writers, scholars, and teachers.

Others argue that we need the humanities more than ever in the AI age – to guide ethical decisions, preserve culture, and infuse technology with human values. As we stand at the crossroads of technology and liberal arts, the stakes are high. The debate isn’t just academic; it strikes at the heart of education, employment, and our understanding of what makes us human.

In this article, we’ll explore the future of the humanities in an AI-driven world. We’ll look at the background of how we got here – the decline of humanities in recent years and the rise of powerful AI models like ChatGPT. Then we’ll examine the main arguments of those who fear AI could doom the humanities, from automated writing to shrinking student interest. After that, we’ll delve into the counterarguments – why many believe the humanities will endure or even thrive alongside artificial intelligence.

Throughout, we’ll draw on expert insights and real examples, from university classrooms grappling with ChatGPT to companies seeking liberal arts grads for their “AI-proof” skills. The goal is a nuanced, conversational journey through this pressing issue.

By the end, we might find that the question isn’t simply “will the humanities survive AI,” but how the humanities can adapt and even help shape an AI-enhanced future. As one commentator put it, the humanities may not survive unchanged, but “in the ruins of the old curriculum, something vital is stirring”​. So let’s investigate what’s changing, what’s at risk, and why the human pursuit of meaning and creativity is unlikely to be extinguished by even the smartest machines.

Background: Humanities at a Crossroads in the AI Era

To understand the anxiety – and hope – surrounding humanities and AI, we need to look at where the humanities stand today. Even before the latest AI boom, the humanities were often said to be in “crisis.” Over the past decade, enrollment in humanities majors has plummeted in many countries. In the United States, the share of undergraduates earning degrees in fields like English, history, languages, and philosophy fell by about one-third from 2012 to 2022 – from roughly 13% of all degrees to under 9%.

In raw numbers, humanities bachelor’s degrees dropped 24% in that period, sinking below 200,000 degrees awarded annually for the first time in over two decades, see: ​hechingerreport.org. This steep decline has been echoed globally; one report noted that 4 out of 5 OECD countries saw falling humanities enrollments in the past decade, see: ​newyorker.com.

Why are students turning away from the humanities? A big factor is the perceived link between college majors and jobs. For years now, there’s been a drumbeat of advice to “learn to code” or pursue STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) fields that supposedly guarantee employment. High tuition costs and student debt have made many young people and parents wary of degrees that don’t have an obvious career path.

As one student put it about her choice of major, “There’s an emphasis on who is going to hire you”​. Humanities disciplines – long associated with intangible benefits like “learning to think” or becoming “citizens of the world” – have struggled to articulate their practical value in an era of ROI-minded education​.

At the same time, universities and colleges have been cutting back on humanities programs. In early 2023, for example, Marymount University in Virginia made headlines by eliminating nine majors, including English, history, philosophy, art, and theology. The board justified the cuts as part of “our responsibility to prepare [students] for the fulfilling, in-demand careers of the future”​.

In other words, administrators felt these liberal arts majors weren’t leading directly to jobs – so they axed them. Marymount’s decision, while extreme, is not isolated.

Around the country, dozens of institutions have downsized or dissolved humanities departments​. Small liberal-arts colleges cite low enrollments and tight budgets; public universities face political pressure to prioritize majors that drive economic growth. The trend has raised eyebrows and alarms among educators who see such moves as short-sighted.

This is the landscape onto which artificial intelligence exploded in the early 2020s. AI certainly isn’t brand new to education or research – computer algorithms have been used for years in data analysis, language translation, etc. But the end of 2022 brought something truly game-changing: generative AI became mainstream. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and similar large language models showed an uncanny ability to produce fluent essays, answer complex questions, and converse in human-like ways.

Suddenly, tasks that were squarely in the domain of humanities training – writing an analysis, summarizing a text, even crafting fiction or poetry – could seemingly be done at the click of a button by a machine. Likewise, image-generation AIs (like DALL-E or Midjourney) began creating art and illustrations from simple prompts. What had once sounded like science fiction became a practical reality accessible to millions of users overnight.

The arrival of these tools set off both excitement and panic in academia. Many educators worried that students would use ChatGPT to cheat on essays and exams, undermining learning. In fact, by early 2023, numerous university syllabi carried stern warnings: use AI on assignments and face disciplinary action.

A history professor at Princeton noted that nearly every syllabus he saw had a ban on ChatGPT, leaving students “paralyzed” – afraid to even experiment with these tools lest they be reported to the deans​. At some schools, AI usage was outright banned on the network.

Rather than embrace discussion of AI, some faculty tried to pretend it wasn’t happening: essentially, “Don’t use these tools and we’ll carry on as before.” As one commentator dryly observed, this head-in-the-sand approach is “madness. And it won’t hold for long”.​ The AI revolution in knowledge is simply too significant to ignore.

Yet not everyone in academia is shunning AI. A counter-movement of teachers have begun integrating AI into their classes – for example, assigning students to critique or improve AI-generated text, or to use AI as a research assistant with proper attribution. These educators argue that we should teach with the new technology, not against it, so that students learn its limitations and strengths.

There’s even a Duke University press article bluntly titled “Don’t Ban AI from Your Writing Classroom; Require It!”, urging a proactive adaptation of humanities pedagogy. Whether one is optimistic or fearful, it’s clear that AI is now a presence in humanities education. The question “Will the humanities survive AI?” stems from this very real collision between centuries-old disciplines and cutting-edge tech.

Beyond academia, think about the wider cultural sphere. Humanists aren’t just professors – they include writers, journalists, artists, museum curators, translators, editors, and more. AI’s advances touch these roles too. Media organizations have started using AI to draft news reports (especially on formulaic topics like sports scores or stock updates). Some novelists and screenwriters worry that studios might use AI to generate scripts or stories, perhaps reducing opportunities for human writers.

Visual artists have seen AI models trained on human-made images and styles, raising debates about originality and intellectual property. In short, the humanities in the broad sense – our creation and interpretation of culture – are feeling the tremors of AI.

This background sets up a classic conflict narrative: on one side, a declining humanities struggling for respect and resources; on the other, a surging AI movement celebrated for innovation but potentially indifferent to humanistic values. No wonder there’s an existential flavor to the question of survival. Are we heading toward a future where AI’s data-driven efficiency simply outcompetes the humanities, seen as inefficient or old-fashioned? Or will the humanities find new footing, possibly by transforming their practices and collaborating with AI?

To get a clearer picture, let’s break down the main arguments of those who are pessimistic about the humanities’ fate in the AI age. What exactly do they fear will happen? Then, we’ll counter with the arguments from the other side – those who believe humanities will not only survive but are in some ways irreplaceable, even by super-intelligent algorithms.

AI’s Challenge to the Humanities: The Case for Concern

Advocates for the humanities have a saying: “We’ve survived many upheavals before – we’ll survive this one too.” But the doomsayers (and even some realist insiders) point out that the challenges posed by artificial intelligence are unlike anything before. Here are the main concerns and arguments from those who worry AI could seriously undermine, or even “end,” the humanities as we know them:

1. Automation of Writing and Analysis – Are Human Thinkers Redundant?
   
   One of the biggest shocks of the AI boom is how creative and articulate machines have become. Tools like ChatGPT can write plausible student essays, literary parodies, or historical summaries in seconds. Need a five-paragraph analysis of Shakespeare’s Hamlet? An AI can churn one out almost instantly – and it will be grammatically correct, on-topic, and even insightful (at least at first glance). This raises an unsettling prospect: if machines can do the core work of humanities scholars and students – reading, writing, synthesizing information – what will be left for humans to do?
   
   College professors have already mused that within a few years, it may make little sense for historians to spend months writing a traditional monograph (a scholarly book), because an AI could generate a similar fact-filled study at the push of a button​. In other words, the productive output of humanities research – articles, summaries, reports, even books – might be offloaded to algorithms.
   
   Likewise, in workplaces, if an AI can draft press releases, analyze market culture trends, or translate documents almost as well as a humanities graduate, employers might decide they need fewer human writers, analysts, or translators. We’re already seeing early signs of this: some media companies started using AI to generate simple news stories, and marketing firms use AI text tools for slogan ideas and social media posts. The threat of automation looms over many white-collar jobs, and humanities-related roles are not immune.
   
   An overhyped memo from a Silicon Valley venture firm infamously claimed, “AI will eliminate the grunt work of junior employees.” If that comes true, entry-level positions in fields like journalism or publishing – often filled by humanities majors – could dry up, making it harder to launch human careers in those areas. Moreover, AI doesn’t tire or demand a salary. A single system can generate a thousand poems or analyze a million lines of text far faster than any person. For tasks that prioritize quantity or speed over depth, organizations might lean on AI over people.
   
   A college student might wonder, “Why should I spend weeks researching and writing a term paper when an AI can do it overnight?” This mentality, if it takes hold, could erode the very practice of humanistic study. The worry is a self-fulfilling cycle: if we start relying on AI for intellectual labor, students won’t practice those skills, becoming more dependent on AI in the future. In the extreme scenario, the humanities could become a niche luxury – something only pursued by hobbyists or elites – while society at large just consumes AI-generated culture passively.
   
2. Integrity of Education – A “Post-Plagiarism” Crisis
   
   Closely tied to automation is the immediate crisis of academic integrity. The humanities have traditionally been taught through reading, discussing, and writing. Essays, term papers, and written exams are the bread-and-butter of evaluating a student’s understanding in subjects like literature or history. But if any student can fire up an AI and get a well-written essay in seconds, how can teachers any longer tell who has actually learned and who has simply used a chatbot? This fear struck like lightning in late 2022 as teachers witnessed AI-written assignments that were hard to distinguish from student-written ones.
   
   The result has been a wave of anxiety in schools and universities. Many instructors responded with harsh policies (threats of disciplinary action) or by redesigning assignments entirely (for example, more oral exams, in-class writing, or personalized project work that’s harder for AI to fake). The transition is rough. University faculty report that students are often confused – they’re curious about using AI for help but terrified of punishment if they do. “Nobody wants to risk it,” one Princeton student explained regarding ChatGPT use​.
   
   Some institutions briefly tried blanket bans on any AI-related assignments, see: ​newyorker.com. The educational environment, especially in humanities classes, has become tense and fraught. Teachers are scrambling to find new ways to assess learning that AI can’t easily shortcut, such as impromptu in-class writing or oral defenses of papers. But not all instructors are prepared for this sudden pedagogical shift. There’s a real worry that in this chaos, students may end up learning less.
   
   If a literature class drops essays (for fear of AI misuse) and replaces them with multiple-choice tests on plot points, is that really an improvement? If a philosophy professor spends more time policing AI cheating than mentoring students on critical thinking, the quality of education suffers. In short, AI’s presence has thrown the traditional humanities education model into doubt. The old model relied on a kind of honor system – that students wrote their own thoughts and that the struggle of writing was integral to learning. Now that system is under siege.
   
   Some pessimists say that if we can’t solve this, fewer people will truly learn the skills of writing and analysis; they might just learn how to prompt AI or, conversely, avoid tasks that can be AI-assisted. The long-term implication is a generation of graduates who haven’t internalized the humanistic skills of forming arguments, interpreting texts, or articulating complex ideas – because they leaned on AI as a crutch. That prospect understandably alarms educators dedicated to the humanities’ ideals.
   
3. Economic Pressures and Institutional Neglect
   
   The third argument is more about policy and funding: AI’s rise could further marginalize the humanities in academia and society. If university leaders and government policymakers see AI-driven fields as the future, they may double down on shifting resources away from humanities departments. This was already happening to some extent, as noted earlier with majors getting cut for not being “in-demand.” The advent of AI might accelerate that trend.
   
   Why keep investing in English or anthropology programs if, as one Wall Street Journal op-ed provocatively suggested, “an AI can teach your Shakespeare class or grade your history exam”? (Whether or not that’s true, the narrative can take on a life of its own.) We’ve witnessed tech-sector billionaires endowing AI institutes, robotics labs, and data science centers on campuses – shiny new programs that often overshadow the classics or art history departments housed in older buildings next door.
   
   There is concern that funding for the humanities will dry up even more as grant-makers favor AI-related research. For example, a hypothetical grant committee might choose to support a project on “AI in literature analysis” (tech appeal) over a traditional project on Renaissance poetry. If humanities scholars are pushed to always include a tech angle to get funding, the pure exploration of human culture for its own sake could dwindle. In cultural institutions too, budgets follow buzz.
   
   A museum might allocate more money to high-tech interactive exhibits and less to, say, literary programming. A public library might spend more on AI-driven recommendation systems and cut back on human-led discussion groups. While modernization isn’t bad, the fear is a zero-sum game where humanities lose out to tech priorities at every turn. One telling quote came from the president of Marymount University during the controversial cuts: she argued that resources must go toward programs that lead to jobs “of the future,” implicitly suggesting humanities are the past​.
   
   If that mindset spreads, many humanities educators feel their fields could be systematically dismantled. There’s also the labor market to consider. Even as some jobs shrink, new jobs are being created in the AI economy – but those tend to favor people with computing, math, or engineering backgrounds. We see booming demand for data scientists and AI specialists. If society funnels young people overwhelmingly into those pipelines, the talent pool in humanities (new Ph.D. students, upcoming writers, etc.) could further shrink.
   
   The pipeline problem becomes circular: fewer students -> smaller departments -> fewer faculty -> fewer courses -> even fewer students, and so on. AI’s rise could turbocharge that cycle if humanities are seen as irrelevant in a high-tech world.
   
4. Cultural Shift: Changing How We Value Knowledge and Creativity
   
   Finally, beyond concrete issues of jobs and classes, there’s a philosophical and cultural concern. The humanities have long been about the human experience – interpreting our history, expressing our thoughts and emotions, grappling with moral dilemmas, creating beauty through art and language. What happens when a lot of our stories, art, and answers come from machines? Some worry about a kind of cultural loss or atrophy.
   
   If people get used to AI-generated poetry, AI-curated news feeds, AI-recommended books, will they stop seeking out the human voices? There is a fear that society’s relationship to creativity and knowledge may fundamentally change. For instance, will future generations consider it unnecessary to memorize anything or learn deeply, since an AI assistant can provide any fact or context on demand? Already, the Google era diminished rote memorization (“why remember dates when you can Google them?”); AI might diminish the perceived need for even analytical thinking (“why analyze a novel when an AI can instantly tell me themes and symbols?”).
   
   The process of slow, reflective study – which is central to humanities – could be devalued in favor of instant answers. But instant answers are often shallow. Humanities scholars worry that a reliance on AI could make our collective understanding more superficial. There’s also an authenticity issue: human-created art and literature carry the weight of personal experience and intention. When you read a poem by Maya Angelou, you’re connecting to her lived experience, her soul in a sense. If you read a poem generated by a neural network trained on thousands of poems, do you feel the same connection?
   
   Many would argue no – it might be impressive, but it lacks authorship in the human sense. If large swaths of content we consume have no human author, how does that affect our culture? Some pessimists imagine a dystopian scenario where most novels, songs, or images that people engage with are AI outputs optimized for clicks or tailored to individual tastes, while human artists struggle to get attention. In such a world, the humanities could “survive” only as a niche subculture, not as a mainstream force shaping minds and hearts.
   
   This point is admittedly speculative, but it underpins a lot of the worry: AI might flood the world with secondhand creativity – a kind of remix of all our human-generated archives – and in doing so, dampen the creation of new, original human works. As one scholar quipped, AI is like a “Frankensteinian reanimation of our collective dead letters”​, see: newyorker.com – it can simulate much of what humans have already said. If we start preferring the simulation (because it’s cheap, easy, on-demand), the real innovative spark of the humanities could be in danger of flickering out.

In sum, the case for concern is multi-faceted: automation threatens to replace or de-skill humanistic work; education is facing a cheating crisis and identity crisis; economic trends could further starve the humanities of support; and our cultural habits might shift in ways that sideline human creativity.

It’s a sobering picture. Indeed, one humanities professor wrote that “everything must change” in the wake of AI, warning that clinging to old ways in the humanities is futile​. If one stops the story here, it sounds quite dire – as if the humanities may not survive, at least not in their current form.

However, that’s not the end of the story. There is a powerful counter-narrative emerging: that far from killing the humanities, AI is highlighting why they are uniquely valuable, and even opening new opportunities for them. Let’s turn to those counterarguments – the reasons many thinkers are optimistic (or at least not despairing) about the humanities in the age of AI.

Humanities Fighting Back: Why the Humanities Will Endure in an AI World

Despite all the challenges we just outlined, a large contingent of scholars, journalists, tech leaders, and students themselves believe that the humanities are not doomed at all. In fact, some argue that they’re indispensable in dealing with AI’s rise. Let’s explore the key reasons often given for why the humanities will survive – and even thrive – alongside artificial intelligence:

1. Irreplaceable Human Creativity, Critical Thought, and Empathy
   
   At the heart of the optimism is a simple fact: AI, for all its wizardry with words and images, does not possess human consciousness or true creativity. Yes, AI can mash up patterns from its vast training data to produce something resembling a creative work. But it operates by statistical prediction, not by emotional insight or lived experience. It can’t truly feel beauty or grief or moral conflict. Humanities, on the other hand, are about those very things – genuine human insights and creativity that spring from life itself.
   
   As Princeton professor D. Graham Burnett put it, machines can deliver answers, but “to be human is not to have answers. It is to have questions”, see: ​newyorker.com. An AI might output a neat answer, but it doesn’t grapple with the question of meaning behind it. Humans ask why, we wrestle with ambiguity, we imagine entirely new things beyond the data. Consider literature and art: While an AI might churn out a pastiche novel in Jane Austen’s style, only a human novelist can create something truly original that connects with readers on a deep level.
   
   The same goes for interpretation. An AI can summarize a philosophical argument, but can it relate that philosophy to the human condition in a novel way, or synthesize it with personal experience? These require critical thinking and emotional intelligence unique to humans. One student who experimented with ChatGPT asked the bot if it could experience the beauty of music, and the bot honestly answered that it could not – it has no feelings or bodily experience​.
   
   This highlights a hard limit: AI can simulate knowledge, but not being. In practical terms, this means there will continue to be a demand for human originality and perspective. The world would get boring quickly if everything was just recombinations of what we already have in archives. We look to artists and thinkers to surprise us, challenge us, break the mold. Humanities scholars argue that true innovation often comes from humanistic, cross-disciplinary thinking – the very kind of thinking AI, which is bound by its programming, isn’t great at.
   
   Steve Jobs, who was as tech as they come, famously said: “Technology alone is not enough – it’s technology married with the liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.”​ Jobs credited his calligraphy class (a humanistic pursuit) for inspiring the beautiful typography in Apple computers, see: ​newyorker.com. That blend of technical and humanistic creativity built the most valuable company in the world.
   
   Moreover, empathy and ethical judgment are part of creativity and critical thinking. AI lacks empathy – it won’t inherently understand human struggles or moral nuances unless we painstakingly program some facsimile of ethics into it (an ongoing challenge!). Professions that require human connection – therapists, teachers, counselors, even managers and leaders – draw heavily on humanities skills (storytelling, ethical reasoning, understanding history or psychology). These roles won’t be handed over to AIs wholesale because people respond to people.
   
   A student inspired by a passionate literature teacher, or a community moved by a poet’s reading – those experiences can’t be replicated by a cold algorithm. Thus, the core value of the humanities – to illuminate the human experience – remains intact and vital, no matter how sophisticated AI becomes. In fact, as AI churns out more generic content, authentically human voices and stories may become more precious (much like in the age of mass-produced fast food, there’s a renewed craving for handcrafted cuisine).
   
2. Guiding Ethics and Shaping Tech’s Future
   
   Another strong counterargument is that the rise of AI increases the need for the humanities, especially in ethics, philosophy, and cultural context. We are already seeing how unbridled technological advancement can outpace our moral and social readiness. As one observer noted, “the moral issues being raised by technology continue to outpace our ability to think about such issues”​.
   
   Who will help society think about such issues? Not the machines – that’s a job for humanists. We need ethicists to weigh questions like AI fairness and accountability, historians to put AI in context with past technological revolutions, philosophers to debate consciousness and rights if we ever get to advanced AI, and writers/journalists to communicate these nuances to the public. Far from sidelining these roles, the AI era is amplifying their importance. Policymakers and tech companies themselves are starting to recognize this.
   
   There have been numerous calls to bring “voices from outside the industry” – i.e., non-engineers – into AI development and governance. In the words of The New Yorker tech writer Joshua Rothman, “We urgently need voices from outside the [AI] industry to help shape its future.”​ Those outside voices are often humanities-trained thinkers: legal scholars, sociologists, anthropologists, artists.
   
   Governments forming AI advisory boards are seeking out philosophers and historians alongside computer scientists. Why? Because questions like AI bias (e.g. how to avoid racial or gender bias in algorithms) require understanding of society and justice – classic humanities terrain. Questions about AI and employment, or AI and warfare, invoke ethics and historical perspective. We’ve already had a few wake-up calls.
   
   For instance, when an advanced AI chatbot publicly professed love to a user and behaved unpredictably, it freaked people out and prompted soul-searching about AI’s emotional impact​. When big AI experts themselves say there’s a non-zero chance AI could even “wipe out humanity” one day, see: ​detroitcatholic.com, it’s clear we’re dealing with weighty existential questions – the kind humanities folks have grappled with for ages (no one better to discuss an apocalypse scenario than, say, a historian of science fiction or a philosopher of ethics!).
   
   The bottom line is that human judgment must guide AI’s integration into society. If we cut away the humanities, we risk unleashing technology without wisdom. As a Catholic news outlet bluntly put it, facing “boundless advances in bloodless, soulless technology, we need the humanities more than ever”​.
   
   Those “theologians, philosophers, writers” are needed to speak to the human side and the greater good, ensuring AI serves us rather than harms us. In practical terms, this means careers in ethics (AI ethicist, policy advisor) are now emerging that actively recruit people with humanities backgrounds. Tech companies have hired ethics teams and “AI philosophers” (Google famously hired theologian James Moore as an AI ethicist a few years back). Institutions like UNESCO and the IEEE have committees drafting AI ethics guidelines, often chaired or populated by philosophers and legal scholars.
   
   This is a sign that far from being obsolete, the humanistic perspective is in demand to navigate the AI frontier. It’s a different career application than, say, teaching high school literature, but it’s very much a way humanities expertise is proving essential in the workforce shaped by AI.
   
3. Augmenting Humanities Work, Not Replacing It
   
   Not everyone sees AI as an enemy; many humanists are embracing it as a powerful new tool – one that can augment their work rather than replace it. The analogy here is to past inventions: just as the calculator didn’t eliminate the need to understand math (it freed mathematicians to focus on deeper problems once basic arithmetic was automated), AI can free humanities scholars from drudge work and open new avenues of inquiry. This viewpoint suggests that the humanities might evolve with AI, leading to a kind of hybrid practice that’s richer than what we had before.
   
   For example, in the field of digital humanities, researchers use computational tools to analyze cultural artifacts. They might employ AI to read tens of thousands of Victorian-era novels to find common themes or to scan artworks across museums to detect influences and patterns. No human could manually crunch that much material. AI can act as a tireless research assistant, handling “big data” of culture.
   
   One case study from the University of South Carolina showed scholars using AI to map the social networks of 18th-century intellectuals by analyzing letters and texts – revealing connections that no one historian could have spotted by reading a few documents in an archive​. Such projects don’t eliminate the role of the human scholar; rather, they provide more raw material and analytical power for the scholar to interpret.
   
   The humanist still frames the questions, guides the AI, and makes sense of the results – tasks requiring human insight. In teaching, some forward-thinking professors have started to integrate AI in assignments creatively. Instead of banning ChatGPT, they might require students to collaborate with it: e.g., “Ask the AI a question about this novel and then critique its response. Where is it insightful, and where does it miss the point?”
   
   Exercises like this can sharpen students’ critical thinking about both the text and the tool. One writing instructor suggested having students use AI to generate a draft, then focus their effort on revising and improving that draft – thus emphasizing higher-order writing skills (organization, voice, argumentation) over lower-order ones (basic grammar), somewhat analogous to how using a calculator lets math students focus on complex problem-solving instead of long division. The point is adaptation: the humanities can adapt their methods so that AI becomes a partner in exploration, not a cheat or a threat.
   
   Even in creative fields, artists are beginning to use AI as a medium or muse – a new kind of paintbrush. We see experiments like filmmakers using AI-generated storyboards to visualize ideas, or novelists co-writing with an AI (getting suggestions for plot twists, for instance). These are controversial, yes, but also potentially creative. The output is ultimately guided by human aesthetic judgment. In fact, leveraging AI might spur new forms of art and analysis.
   
   A historian could generate a simulation of an alternate historical narrative and then analyze why it diverges from reality, gaining insights about historical causality. A musician might train an AI on Baroque music to generate new compositions, then modify them to create a fresh Baroque-inspired piece – essentially conversing with musical history via AI. Crucially, many humanists remind us that automation of certain tasks doesn’t equate to elimination of the field.
   
   When photography was invented, some thought painting would die – instead, painters moved to new styles (Impressionism, abstract art) that photography couldn’t do, and painting survived by focusing on what a camera couldn’t capture (the artist’s subjective vision). Similarly, if AI can now summarize any text (like CliffsNotes on steroids), perhaps human literary scholars will focus less on writing summaries and more on generating new interpretations and theories – the creative, subjective side that AI can’t replicate.
   
   As Burnett wrote, “factory-style scholarly productivity was never the essence of the humanities. The real project was always us: the work of understanding”​. In his view, automating the grunt work of knowledge accumulation simply forces the humanities back to their core mission: grappling with questions of meaning, value, and human existence that no machine can answer for us, see: ​newyorker.com. In that sense, AI is almost doing the humanities a favor by taking over the rote stuff and shining a light on the profound stuff only humans can do.
   
4. Humanities Skills in the Age of AI: More Valuable, Not Less
   
   While earlier we noted that many people choose STEM for job security, ironically, the AI revolution might make distinctly human skills more valuable on the job market. Here’s why: as AI automates technical tasks (even coding or number-crunching), employers will hunger for employees who have skills that AI lacks – namely, critical thinking, creativity, communication, adaptability, and ethical reasoning. Guess which educational background tends to cultivate those? The liberal arts and humanities.
   
   A 2024 report in Higher Ed Dive noted that many tech industry and education experts predict demand for liberal arts majors will grow as AI spreads, because companies will need people who can “think through the ethical stakes and unintended consequences” of new technologies​highereddive.com. They’ll also need folks who can communicate – for instance, translating geek-speak from developers into everyday language for customers, or crafting a narrative around a product that resonates with people.
   
   Those are classic strengths of humanities graduates. We’re already seeing evidence of this in employer surveys. Eight out of ten executives say that skills like effective communication, teamwork, and critical thinking are very important in hires – yet half of them complain that recent graduates lack those skills​.
   
   That’s a skills gap humanities programs can fill. The University of Arizona, for example, started marketing the message “Humanities = Jobs” on billboards​, emphasizing that humanities teach you to solve complex problems outside a narrow specialty – exactly what employers say they want. And in fact, Arizona’s humanities enrollment rebounded by connecting humanities with business and medicine programs, showing students that a humanities skillset can boost any career​.
   
   In the context of AI, new kinds of roles might emerge where humanities graduates shine. Think of a role like “AI ethicist” (as discussed) or “prompt engineer” – someone adept at crafting the right questions or prompts to get useful output from AI. Writing an effective prompt is almost an art form; it requires understanding nuance and context, which English or philosophy majors practice often. There’s also a need for “human in the loop” editors – e.g., an AI might generate a report, but a human with domain knowledge (history, politics, etc.) must fact-check, refine, and ensure it makes sense.
   
   AI can draft, but humans must direct and edit. Those who have broad, interdisciplinary knowledge (often from humanities education) can catch mistakes or misinterpretations that a narrowly trained specialist might miss. Furthermore, leadership and management roles will continue to require humanistic insight. AI might analyze data to inform a business strategy, but deciding the vision and motivating a team to execute it involves storytelling, empathy, and ethics. As automation trims some jobs, the jobs that remain will be those that can’t be automated – and many of those align with humanities strengths.
   
   In other words, the humanities may survive not by resisting AI, but by providing the soft skills and big-picture thinking that perfectly complement AI’s capabilities. The future workplace might pair an AI system with a humanist in much the way we pair sophisticated machinery with skilled operators. Each brings something to the table.
   
5. Historical Resilience and the Enduring Human Quest for Meaning
   
   Lastly, perspective is important. The humanities have faced existential threats before and adapted. When the printing press was invented in the 15th century, it upended the world of scribes and oral tradition – but it also democratized learning and led to an explosion of literature and philosophy. Radio, TV, and the internet each forced changes in how we consume stories and information, yet none erased our fundamental desire to tell stories, understand our past, or reflect on our lives.
   
   It’s likely the humanities will once again reinvent themselves in light of AI. In fact, we might already be seeing the first steps of that reinvention. Burnett suggests that because AI can handle factual “knowledge production,” humanists can return to asking the big questions – “How to live? What to do? How to face death?” – which no data or AI can definitively answer​. These questions are eternal, and people will always seek answers or at least solace in philosophy, religion, literature and the arts.
   
   The format might change (perhaps more digital, more interactive), but the essence remains. In times of great technological change, people often turn to the humanities for guidance. The uncertainty brought by AI might actually drive interest in ethics courses, history lessons (to see how past generations handled upheaval), and creative outlets that help people cope with change.
   
   One humanities professor said that paradoxically, despite “grim times” for academic departments, “I think things have never looked better” for the humanistic mission – because now society is confronted with exactly the kinds of profound questions humanists love to explore​.

Consider also the simple human craving for meaning and connection. We listen to music or read novels not just for information, but to feel something, to resonate with another human’s expression. That need isn’t going away. If anything, in a future flooded with AI outputs, authentic human artistry might become a kind of premium product. We might see labels like “Written by a human” or “Hand-painted by a human” as selling points – a reverse Turing test of sorts, where people seek out the human-made as special.

Already, there’s discussion in creative communities about emphasizing human origin, much as the food industry now highlights “organic” or “handcrafted” goods in response to mass production. The humanities could capitalize on this by foregrounding what only humans can do: produce culture that has a soul and a context behind it.

History gives hope here. No technological advancement has managed to kill curiosity, imagination, or moral inquiry. They are part of our human nature. Universities may shrink or grow, tools will evolve, but people – whether inside a classroom or on their own – will still read Shakespeare, ponder Aristotle, debate social justice, and create art. The mediums may shift (from scroll to print to pixel, from stage play to VR experience), but the humanities adapt to inhabit each new medium.

AI is just another new medium or tool. Just as film didn’t kill theatre (it spawned new genres, while theatre refined what it does best), AI won’t kill the humanities; it will challenge them to zero in on what makes them human. And by doing so, the humanities can survive with their core mission intact.

To be clear, these counterarguments aren’t pollyannaish. Proponents acknowledge that the humanities must evolve and that the transition won’t be painless. It requires rethinking curricula, forging interdisciplinary alliances (imagine more programs that blend computer science with philosophy, or literature with data science), and actively communicating the value of humanities to the public.

But the message is ultimately one of resilience and even opportunity: AI might take over some tasks, but it also highlights the limitations of machines, thereby underlining what humans do best. It’s up to humanists to seize that moment and reinvent their fields in ways that engage the AI world rather than hide from it.

Conclusion: A New Renaissance or an Enduring Partnership?

So, will the humanities survive artificial intelligence? After examining both the worries and the hopes, the most likely answer is: Yes – but not without change. The humanities may not survive exactly as we’ve known them, to borrow that New Yorker phrase, but survive they will, and perhaps even flourish in new forms. Instead of an apocalypse for literature, history, philosophy and the arts, the AI revolution could spark a renaissance in how we teach, practice, and value these disciplines.

From the argument above, a vision emerges of a future where the humanities and AI are not enemies, but partners. Imagine university courses where students work side by side with AI tools, guided by human professors who push them to question and critique what the AI outputs. The focus shifts from rote information to interpretation and ethical reasoning.

Outside academia, imagine tech companies with ethicists and historians as integral team members, ensuring their AI products are culturally aware and morally sound. Envision a cultural scene where human creators use AI to amplify their imagination, and audiences seek out works that carry a human signature of authenticity and emotional truth.

Getting to that future means navigating the present challenges. Humanities scholars and educators will need to be proactive: updating assignment styles, incorporating discussions about AI into humanities content (for instance, a philosophy class debating the ethics of AI fits perfectly within its curriculum), and loudly articulating the value of what they do.

There’s encouraging movement on that front – from interdisciplinary conferences on AI and the humanities, to public essays reframing the humanities as critical for an AI world. The SEO of ideas, if you will, is shifting: search terms like “critical thinking,” “ethics in AI,” “AI creativity” are now hot topics, and humanities experts are weighing in as thought leaders.

For students and parents worried about the practicality of humanities, the narrative is also changing. We’ve seen that employers are increasingly interested in the so-called “soft skills” that are actually hard to come by. The ability to communicate, adapt, and think broadly is becoming a survival skill in the workplace, precisely because AI handles the narrow technical stuff. As that realization spreads, society may rediscover what humanities education has to offer in a very tangible way.

A recent white paper by the Business-Higher Education Forum found that broad skills like analytical thinking and creativity are at least as important for future jobs as tech know-how, and many graduates lack them​.That gap is an opening for humanities programs to assert their importance.

Ultimately, the survival of the humanities may come down to this: our unwavering human need to make sense of our world. Artificial intelligence can provide data and mimic patterns, but it doesn’t inherently provide meaning. We turn to history to understand the present, to literature and art to understand ourselves, and to philosophy and religion to understand our responsibilities and hopes. As long as humans face big questions about life, death, justice, beauty, love, and truth, we will need the humanities.

These questions are not going to be answered by any machine – they live in the realm of debate, interpretation, and continual re-thinking that only conscious beings can engage in. In fact, as AI takes over routine tasks, we might have more room to contemplate these big questions – a luxury that the hyper-busy 20th century sometimes deprived people of. In a hopeful twist, AI could automate the drudgery and free up more human intellectual capacity to focus on what really matters to us.

In the closing of his essay, Professor Burnett struck a cautiously optimistic note: after the initial upheaval, “we can return—seriously, earnestly—to the reinvention of the humanities, and of humanistic education itself”​. That reinvention is already underway. The humanities are repositioning themselves not as a dusty relic to be protected from technology, but as a dynamic force that will guide and humanize technology. As one commentator urged, the world needs “people who can make sense of the human experience” in this era of rapid change. That is precisely what the humanities have always done, and will continue to do.

So, will the humanities survive artificial intelligence? Yes – by embracing what makes us human, working with AI where it helps, and steadfastly doing what machines cannot. In the process, the humanities might change form, just as they have through past revolutions, but their essential spirit – curiosity about ourselves and our world – will remain. After all, to be human is to question, to create, to seek meaning. As long as that spark lives in us, the humanities will survive, and no intelligent machine can take that away.