As AI technology advances, recent graduates must navigate the shifting job market and discover the value of human connection in a world of machines.
The Power of Humanity in a World of AI
As you leave Temple University, ready to take on the world, it’s natural to wonder how artificial intelligence (AI) will impact your career. Will AI replace your job? Will you be able to compete with machines that can think and learn like humans?
In this moment of truth, I want to tell you that your education was not in vain. You have a great future ahead of you, no matter how smart and capable ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Llama get. And here is the reason: You have something that no computer can ever have.
Human skills, also known as soft skills, are essential for personal and professional growth.
They encompass abilities like communication, teamwork, problem-solving, and adaptability.
According to a study by the World Economic Forum, by 2022, more than 50% of employees will need to develop new skills to remain employable.
Developing human skills can improve job prospects, boost career advancement, and enhance overall well-being.
The Value of Human Connection
Liberal arts graduates, you have majored in subjects like Psychology, History, Anthropology, African American, Asian, and Gender Studies, Sociology, Languages, Philosophy, Political Science, Religion, Criminal Justice, and Economics. Every one of those subjects involves examining and interpreting human behavior and human creativity with empathy that only humans can bring to the task.
Liberal arts encompasses a broad range of subjects, including languages, philosophy, history, and mathematics.
These disciplines aim to cultivate critical thinking, creativity, and effective communication skills.
Studies have shown that liberal arts graduates outperform their peers in various industries, with 70% finding employment within six months.
The liberal arts also foster a well-rounded understanding of the world, enabling individuals to navigate complex social and cultural issues.
The observations you make in the social sciences, the analyses you produce on art and culture, the lessons you communicate from your research, have a priceless authenticity based on the simple fact that you are devoting your attention, intelligence, and consciousness to fellow Homo sapiens. People.
Human connection is a vital aspect of human life, essential for emotional and mental well-being. Research shows that people with strong social connections have lower rates of depression and anxiety. In fact, a study by the American Psychological Association found that individuals with strong relationships had better physical health and longer lifespans. Human connection also fosters empathy, understanding, and cooperation, allowing us to build stronger communities.
The lords of AI are spending hundreds of billions of dollars to make their models think like accomplished humans. You have just spent four years at Temple University learning to think as accomplished humans. The difference is immeasurable.
AI’s Limitations
This is something that even Silicon Valley understands, starting from the time Steve Jobs told me four decades ago that he wanted to marry computers and the liberal arts. Some of those liberal arts grads it then hired became among the company’s most valuable employees.
Even inside AI companies, liberal arts grads can and do thrive. Did you know that the president of Anthropic, one of the top creators of generative AI, was an English major? She idolized ‘Joan Didion’.
Furthermore, your work does something that AI can never do: it makes a genuine human connection. OpenAI recently boasted that it trained one of its latest models to churn out creative writing. Maybe it can put together cool sentences—but that’s not what we really seek from books, visual arts, films, and criticism.
The Impact on the Labor Market
In 2023, some researchers published a paper confirming just that. In blind experiments human beings valued what they read more when they thought it was from fellow humans and not a sophisticated system that fakes humanity. In another blind experiment, participants were shown abstract art created by both humans and AI. Though they couldn’t tell which was which, when subjects were asked which pictures they liked better, the human-created ones came out on top.
Other research studies involved brain MRIs. The scans also showed people responded more favorably when they thought humans, not AI, created the artworks. Almost as if that connection was primal.
Embracing Your Human Side
Everything you have learned in the liberal arts—the humanities—depends on that connection. You bring your superpower to it.
I’m not going to sugarcoat things. AI is going to have a huge impact on the labor market, and some jobs will be diminished or eliminated. History teaches us that with every big technological advance, new jobs replace those lost.
Those jobs will exist, as there are countless roles AI can never fill because the technology can’t replicate true human connection. It’s the one thing that AI can’t offer. Combined with the elite skills you have learned at Temple, that connection will make your work continue to be of value.
Your Future Ahead
As you go into the workforce, I urge you to lean into your human side. Yes, you can use AI to automate your busy work, explain complicated topics, and summarize dull documents. It might even be an invaluable assistant. But you will thrive by putting your heart into your own work. AI has no such heart to employ.
Ultimately, flesh, blood, and squishy neurons are more important than algorithms, bits, and neural nets.
So class of 2025, let me send you out into the world with an expression that I encourage you to repeat during these challenging years to come. And that is the repetition of the simple truth that will guide your career and your life as you leave this campus. Here it is: ‘I Am Human’.
I Am Human.
Congratulations, and go out and seize the world. It is still yours to conquer.
