Technology is only as valuable as the one using it
I personally think there’s going to be a greater demand in 10 years for liberal arts majors than for programming majors and maybe even engineering.”
This was the brave and definitive statement by Mark Cuban, the billionaire and philanthropist who owns the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks. He said that degrees such as English, philosophy, and foreign languages would be the most valuable in the future. This unconventional declaration of what is in store for the job market expectedly hogged the headlines.
While the parents of college-age children largely prefer degrees in the fields of science, technology, engineering, mathematics and the technical trades — collectively called STEM — there’s new evidence to suggest that value can still be found in the good old Liberal Arts degree. Hooray for literature, history, humanities and sociology subjects.
Alyse Lorber of Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN) media wrote, “The advent of ‘Big Data’ has led businesses into what seems like a new age of reason. We have the technology now to quantify our world in endless rational ways. We see more, we know more and we have the algorithms to reach people with more precision than ever before. Choose the channels; decide on the message and press send. Relevance is guaranteed; success will surely follow. There’s just one flaw in this analysis: human nature.”
Real people don’t behave as rationally or as predictably. We are familial and emotional and the reasons behind the choices we make aren’t so easily measured.
“We live in the age of feeling,” Lorber emphasized. We go with our guts; we hear what we want to hear; we choose our own “facts.” There’s nothing wrong with that. As Albert Einstein declared, “The only real valuable thing is intuition.”
Feelings cannot be derived from numbers. They are born in stories. They live in shared experiences. They are ignited by invention and surprise, empathy and delight. “By bringing feeling and precision together, we can transform data relevance into human relevance,” Lorber adds. “We can give businesses and brands the power they need to positively thrive in the age of feeling.”
In the book The Fuzzy and the Techie: Why the Liberal Arts Will Rule the Digital World, Scott Hartley writes about employees who bring perspective to intricate codes and data, and social ethics to the cold estimation of systems and procedures. The tome posits that organizations need to depend on those who can understand crucial life issues and those who can best manage the complications of day-to-day interfaces among living and breathing human beings.
“The machines can only do so much, and for society and business to continue moving forward, it’s often the fuzzies, rather than the techies, who play key and vital roles in making this happen,” Hartley underscored.
“Fuzzy” and “techie” are words that Hartley encountered while he was a student at Stanford University, where he took a political science course. Those like him who majored in the humanities or social sciences were labeled “fuzzies,” while those who gravitated towards computer science, engineering and technology-based studies were called “techies.” Though both groups had their share of brilliant scholars, the author noticed a disturbing belief that the techies were the ones who would inevitably drive the economy and make all of the important decisions moving forward. “This mindset crept into the job force as well, with employers, university personnel, and the media driving forth the notion that those from the fuzzie background would be left behind in the new world economy,” Hartley observed.
Eight chapters of the book are spent examining things from a contrary viewpoint. Hartley studied military technology, transportation ingenuities, mental health therapy, and public school education to filter through the various ways in which those analyzing and criticizing issues from a fuzzie mindset boost these industries. He skillfully demonstrated the links between techies leading the behind-the-scenes research and development, and fuzzies implementing it in the real world.
As the author shared in one remarkable case, “It’s great that the techies have given the world access to ride-sharing technologies like Lyft and Uber, but to fully succeed, it’s the fuzzies that collaborate to make these types of apps the conveniences they have become.”
Here are other interesting suppositions from the book:
• Partnership between fuzzies and techies is thriving. Tech-company founders are not always the nerds, computer science wizards and high-school dropouts stereotypically portrayed in the media. They are as likely to come from backgrounds in literature, fashion, education or media as they are to come from profound technology. They have the charisma and vision to bring people together around their ideas, and they know enough about technology to partner with techies to execute their vision. Their comparative advantage is in their ability to identify problems and ask questions, not necessarily locate answers.
• If machines keep getting better, humans must become better versions of themselves. The rise of artificial intelligence, virtual realities and augmented realities will increase the need for fundamental humanity, as well as our desire for affinity, compassion and soft skills. Automation will take away tedious human chores that do not demand higher-level problem-solving abilities. Being a techie is not the antidote to redundancy in tomorrow’s digital economy; being more human is.
• Both fuzzy and a techie are vital to each other’s success. They are essential in equal measure. The new tools allow greater fluency with technology for fuzzies; the advances in machines require greater engagement of our humanity. If we want to know an answer, we’ll ask a machine, but if we want to discover a question, we’ll ask a human.
• Data science is a new career path, but this should work in tandem with data literacy. We have to be familiar with the domain, the context, and how to analyze the raw format. Within Big Data are small patterns — patterns we come to see when machines help surface information, and humans transform it into knowledge.
• Humans are the missing and essential link in artificial intelligence. “Deep-learning AI” also requires deep-thinking humans. To develop products that truly engage, we must appeal to people’s psychology, sensibility, and needs. The path forward is an optimistic one, rooted in performing more complex, non-routine tasks, and it requires both the fuzzy and the techie.
Technology is only as valuable as those that use it and interpret it appropriately. Thus, the need for creative thinkers and effective communicators is stronger than ever. And their tribe will continue to thrive if we powerfully rebut the parent, teacher, or guidance counselor who tells their students to minimize their interest in the humanities.
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