Q&A: In the AI age, why are the humanities still relevant?

December 4, 2025
illustration of a 3-D modeling wire mesh drawn over a pixelated image of Leonardo DaVinci's painting ‘the Mona Lisa’

(Illustration by John DiJulio, University Communications)

A growing number of college students across the country are shunning the liberal arts in favor of majors in business, engineering, health and science. Some might be chasing higher salaries, while others see the nation’s rapid shift to AI technology as a forecast of the job market they’ll enter.

At the University of Virginia over the past decade, the number of arts, history, language and social science majors has dropped from 49% to 38%, while the number of students choosing STEM majors has increased from 35% to 44%.

But students overlooking liberal arts risk missing an important opportunity, argues the dean of UVA’s College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Christa Acampora says the surge in AI technology has made humans – and the humanities – more important than ever. She made that point at a recent talk and followed up with UVA Today about the value of a liberal arts education in an increasingly digital world.

Christa Acampora

College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Dean Christa Acampora says, in the burgeoning age of AI, studying liberal arts “is more important than ever.” (Contributed photo)

Q. First of all, why do you think UVA and its peer institutions across the country are seeing fewer students opt for a liberal arts education?

A. Let’s start with the good news: UVA is the No. 1 producer in the nation of liberal arts degrees among R1 universities (the nation’s top research universities), according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. A recent analysis also shows UVA has experienced a significant shift in enrollments, which reflects national trends.

The changes we’re seeing here and elsewhere likely reflect the fact that students and families want programs that feel directly connected with specific job pathways. But they also show that many people may not fully understand what a liberal arts education provides. 

The irony is that the very forces pulling students away from the liberal arts, especially the rapid rise of AI, are the same forces that make the liberal arts more important than ever. 

Q. How does AI’s rise make the liberal arts more essential? 

A. There’s no doubt that AI is transforming the economy, and we’re beginning to see that in the job market. I watch the data carefully, especially research led by our very own Anton Korinek, who was recently named one of Time Magazine’s most influential people in AI. I also understand that students and their families are concerned about future “returns” on the significant investments they make in education. As you know, UVA continues to perform well in this area, and this holds true among College graduates. 

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Discovery and Innovation: Daily research. Life-changing results.

In the larger context of higher education, liberal arts have spent the past 75 years or so arguing that their value lies in teaching transferable skills that prepare students for a wide variety of fields. While that is true, the rhetoric hasn’t proven very persuasive, and I think it misses the mark in characterizing the enduring value of the liberal arts: They teach us what it means to be human. That matters now more than ever. 

Q. What do you mean when you say the “liberal arts teach us what it means to be human?”

A. Ultimately, the liberal arts teach us so much about key features of human existence, including our capacities to seek and understand knowledge, to discern fact from fiction, the real from the fake, and to explore what is good for us to do and how to live together. There is enduring value in how the liberal arts and sciences enable us to realize beauty and imagination, to understand human creativity and meaning, and to discern the patterns in nature that are also relevant for discovery. The liberal arts also help us understand the richness of our emotional lives and serve as a basis for empathy and meaning. 

These are not trivial matters. They are matters of life and death, and our very humanity is on the line. We are going to need the liberal arts more than ever in the age of AI. We will need to rely on our depth of knowledge of what makes us human for AI to serve rather than sever us from our humanity. The human edge lies in deep appreciation for the distinctive things people can do: imagining, questioning, creating meaning, and caring for others. 

Q. But how do you translate “the human edge” into the workplace?  

A. As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly more capable, distinctively human intelligence is going to become increasingly more valuable. It also worries me that it might become increasingly rare, especially if young people and their families decide to focus their education on artificial intelligence as preparation for the workforce, which is often the case alongside the development of new technologies. Frankly, I think simply studying AI is unlikely to prepare one for the future of work.

The number of AI lead developers in the world is astonishingly small, and the talent and other resources enabling them are rapidly consolidating. Instead, we should be focused on thinking about what it will mean to live in a future with AI.

In that case, understanding the limits of AI and the things that matter most to human beings will have the utmost importance. A liberal arts education develops distinctively human capabilities for flourishing: wisdom, virtue, imagination and creativity, meaning and empathy. That remains unchanged and enduring. The best preparation for a world transformed by AI will include a deep and broad understanding of these key dimensions of human existence and the human purposes that we hope AI can be designed to serve. The world needs that kind of talent and leaders who are prepared to apply it. 

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