“Learn to code” was once common career advice. Now it might be: “Learn to read.”
English majors are often the butt of the joke, known for their unmarketable skills. (Does anyone want to hire me for having read “Great Expectations”?) Anthropic president Daniela Amodei takes the opposing stance. She doesn’t regret her literature degree — and says AI will make the humanities more important.
“In a world where AI is very smart and capable of doing so many things, the things that make us human will become much more important,” she said on ABC News.
Amodei listed some things that make us human: understanding ourselves, our history, and what makes us tick.
Studying the humanities is “more important than ever,” she said, while large language models are often very good at STEM.
“The ability to have critical thinking skills will be more important in the future, rather than less,” Amodei said.
Amodei’s opinion is becoming more popular in AI. Steven Johnson, the editorial director of Google Labs’ NotebookLM, told Business Insider that LLMs were causing a “revenge of the humanities.”
Her brother Dario, the CEO of Anthropic, didn’t seem to take the hint that humanities majors might come back in fashion in an AI-filled world. He studied physics at Caltech and Stanford.
Industry leaders are debating the helpfulness of a computer science major. In the age of vibe-coding, will a CS degree help you in tech?
Their takes diverge: OpenAI chairman Bret Taylor said the major was “extremely valuable,” while Google’s head of Android, Sameer Samat, said it needed a “rebrand.”
Daniela Amodei also described Anthropic’s hiring strategy to ABC. She said the company wants employees with good people skills and communication techniques. Being “kind and compassionate” and wanting to “help other people” are good traits, she said.
“At the end of the day, people still really like interacting with people,” Amodei said.
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