On December 19, 2024, the EAA Roundtable event titled “The Machine Thinks. Do Liberal Arts have a Future?” was held at the EAA Seminar Room, Komaba Campus, University of Tokyo. The conference discussed how AI can process literature and classics under the development of artificial intelligence and how it will affect liberal arts education in the future. Three speakers shared their experiences and views in this event.
From left: Cheung Ching-yuen, Boris Steip, and Chen Yi
As a member of EAA, Cheung Ching-yuen (The University of Tokyo) introduced EEA, its curriculum and education model, which not only focuses on East Asia, but also on science, language, humanities, and other aspects. The East Asian Liberal Arts course is a classic book-reading model that is similar to that of the United States. At the moment when AI is deeply learning, they have begun to pay attention to the relationship between AI and humanities.
Boris Steipe (University of Toronto) and Chen Yi (Journal of East Asian Philosophy) gave a joint presentation, which was concerned about whether Liberal Arts have a future and raised two questions: how machines think and how to use them in education. Either AI is conscious, or it does not think? Based on the structural analysis of AI Deep Learning, it is believed that all answers obtained by AI are implicit in the combination of prompt and weights, and AI dialogue is the product of agency, all human knowledge, and a model of dialogue. The AI mind is a hybrid of three components, therefore it is more appropriate to consider Generative AI as an extension of Self, than as a foreign other.
Participants were very interested in this topic and there was a lively discussion at the event. They used actual AI software to hear AI opinions on the future of the relationship between AI and liberal arts. This event was moderated by Dr. Takayama Hanako (The University of Tokyo).
Report by XI Zihan (EAA Research Assistant)
Photo by Konomi NIIMOTO (EAA Research Assistant)
