05/22/2026
The older I get, the more I appreciate the wisdom and value of the humanities and a liberal arts education in helping us understand what it means to be human.
The ubiquity of AI has only reinforced my appreciation and I believe Ross Douthat’s guest, Jennifer Frey, articulates this perfectly:
“AI is good for the humanities because it clarifies in a specially forceful way what is at stake. If we stop being invested in this project of cultivating our own humanity and we give ourselves over to the robots and the machines…The humanities, when done well, real humane learning is an investigation into what the goal of human society is. I think that what AI really clarifies is the absolutely fundamental existential cultural need for humane learning because it makes it so clear that if we give up our thinking to machines, what will be left?
We will just be a bundle of desires that are coming from outside and we will be a slave to them. We will not really in any meaningful sense be free. I don't care what the political system is.”
From Interesting Times with Ross Douthat: A Defense of a Liberal Arts Education in the Age of A.I., May 21, 2026
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