Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: The liberal arts are currently being reshaped by AI. Fueling this are claims that AI is inevitable, economically if not educationally. The paper argues that most individuals who make these claims are bullshitting, and that any future post-AI must address not only the sources of this bullshit--primarily Big Tech--but also the social structures that have allowed it to influence decision-making within the liberal arts themselves. Throughout, I emphasize two features of the present situation. First, the liberal arts have made poor decisions in response to AI at least in part because we have allocated credibility inappropriately within our own community, i.e., we have deemed as credible individuals who are, in fact, unreliable, and this has resulted in gross collateral epistemic injustice. Second, these inevitability claims are transdisciplinary in nature. For these reasons, positive visions of resistance to or recovery from the AI boom must redress these epistemic injustices and increase the influence of genuine transdisciplinary inquiry in our community.
Author: Mitsch, Chris
Language: English
Subfield: Artificial Intelligence
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7221270257