The MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS) was founded in 1950 in response to “a brand new era emerging from social upheaval and the disasters of war,” as outlined within the 1949 Lewis Committee Report.
The report’s findings emphasized MIT’s role and responsibility in the brand new nuclear age, which called for doubling down on real “integration” of scientific and technical topics with humanistic scholarship and teaching. Only that way, the committee wrote, could MIT tackle “essentially the most difficult and complex problems confronting our generation.”
As SHASS marks its seventy fifth anniversary, Dean Agustín Rayo answers questions on why the necessity for developing students with broad minds and human understanding is as urgent as ever, given pressing challenges within the midst of a brand new technological revolution.
Q: Many universities are responding to artificial intelligence by launching latest technical programs or updating curricula. You’ve suggested the change is deeper than that. Why?
A: Artificial intelligence isn’t just changing the best way students learn — it’s transforming every aspect of society. The labor market is experiencing a dramatic shift, upending traditional paths to financial stability. And AI is changing the ways we bring intending to our lives: the ways we construct relationships, the ways we listen, and the things we enjoy doing.
The upshot is that an important query universities have to ask just isn’t adapt our pedagogy to AI — although we definitely need to handle that. An important query we want to ask is provide an education that brings real value to students within the age of AI.
We want to be certain that universities provide students with the tools they need to seek out a path to financial security and to construct meaningful lives.
We want to supply students with minds which are each nimble and broad. We want our students to not only have the opportunity to execute tasks effectively, but in addition have the judgment to find out which tasks are value executing. We want students who’ve an ethical compass, and who understand how the world works, in all of its political, economic, and human complexity. We want students who know think critically, and who’ve excellent communication and leadership skills.
Q: What role do the humanities, arts, and social sciences play in preparing MIT students for that future?
A: They’re essential, and are rightly a core a part of an MIT education: MIT has long required its undergraduates take not less than eight courses in HASS disciplines to graduate.
Fields like philosophy, political science, economics, literature, history, music, and anthropology are crucial to developing the parts of our lives which are essentially human — the parts that is not going to get replaced by AI.
They’re crucial to developing critical pondering and an ethical compass. They’re crucial to understanding people — our values, institutions, cultures, and ways of pondering. They’re crucial to creating students who’re broad thinkers who understand the best way the world works. They’re crucial to developing students who’re excellent communicators and are in a position to describe their projects — and their lives — in a way that endows them with meaning.
Our students understand this. Here is how considered one of them put the purpose: “Engineering gives me the tools to measure the world; the humanities teach me interpret it. That balance has shaped each how I do science and why I do it.” (Full interview here.)
Q: Some people worry that emphasizing humanistic study could dilute MIT’s technological edge. How do you reply to that concern?
A: I feel the alternative is true.
MIT is a crucial engine for social mobility in america, and a catalyst for entrepreneurship, which has added billions of dollars to the American economy. That can’t be separated from the undeniable fact that we’re a technical institution, which brings together the country’s most talented undergraduates — no matter socioeconomic background — and transforms them into the subsequent generation of our country’s top scientific and engineering leaders.
MIT plays an incredibly necessary role in our country. So, the final thing I would like to do is mess with our secret sauce.
But I also think that the age of AI is forcing us to rethink what it means to be a top engineer.
Take into consideration artificial intelligence itself. The challenges we face will not be just technical. Issues like bias, accountability, governance, and the societal impact of automation aren’t any less necessary. Understanding those dimensions helps technologists design higher systems and anticipate real-world consequences.
Strengthening the humanities at MIT isn’t a departure from our core mission — it’s a way of ensuring that our technical leadership continues to matter on the earth.
Q: What sorts of changes is MIT SHASS pursuing to support this vision?
A: There’s lots happening!
We’ve launched the MIT Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC) as a way of strengthening research within the humanities, arts, and social sciences, and of deepening collaboration with colleagues across MIT.
We’re shaping the undergraduate experience to be certain that every MIT student engages with the large societal questions shaping our time, from democratic resilience to climate change to the ethics of recent technologies.
We’re constructing stronger connections through initiatives just like the creation of shared faculty positions with the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing (SCC). And we recently launched a brand new Music Technology and Computation Graduate Program with the School of Engineering.
We’re partnering with SERC (the SCC’s Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing) to design latest classes on the intersection of computing and human-centered issues, reminiscent of ethics.
And we’re elevating the humanities — for their very own sake, and as an area for experimentation, bringing together students, faculty, and partners to explore latest types of research, teaching, and public engagement.
It is a very exciting time for SHASS.