logo
No, Graduates: AI Hasn't Ended Your Career Before It Starts

No, Graduates: AI Hasn't Ended Your Career Before It Starts

WIRED16-05-2025

May 16, 2025 10:00 AM In a commencement speech at Temple University, I shared my views on how new college graduates can compete with powerful artificial intelligence. Photo-Illustration:Imagine graduating with a liberal arts degree as the age of AI dawns. That's the mindset I faced when addressing the Temple University College of Liberal Arts (where I'm an alum) earlier this month. Truth be told, no one knows what will happen with AI, including those who are building it. I took an optimistic view based on one core truth: As amazing as AI might become, by definition it cannot be human, and therefore the human connection we homo sapiens forge with each other is unique—and gives us an edge.
Here's the speech:
I am thrilled to address the Temple College of Liberal Arts Class of 2025. You have prevailed under the curse of living in interesting times. You coped with Covid in high school and your early years here, navigated your way through the noise of social media, and now face a troubling political climate. The last part of that resonates with me. I attended Temple University at a time of national unrest. Richard Nixon was our president, the war was raging in Vietnam, and the future seemed uncertain.
This is an essay from the latest edition of Steven Levy's Plaintext newsletter.
SIGN UP for Plaintext to read the whole thing, and tap Steven's unique insights and unmatched contacts for the long view on tech.
But there is one concern that you have that I or my classmates could not have conceived of when we graduated over 50 years ago: the fear that artificial intelligence would perform our future jobs and render our career dreams useless.
I didn't touch a computer keyboard during my four years at Temple. It wasn't until almost 10 years after my graduation that I finally interacted directly with a computer. I was assigned a story for Rolling Stone about computer hackers. I was energized and fascinated by their world, and decided to keep writing about it.
Not long after my article was published I ventured to MIT and met Marvin Minsky, one of the scientists who came up with the idea of artificial intelligence at a summer conference at Dartmouth in 1956. Minsky and his peers thought it would only be a few years until computers could think like humans. That optimism—or naivety—became a punch line for many decades. High-level AI was always 10 years away, 20 years away. It was a science fiction fantasy.
Until about 20 years ago or so that was still the case. And then in this century, some computer scientists made breakthroughs in what were called neural nets. It led to rapid progress, and in 2017 another big breakthrough led to the terrifyingly capable large language models like ChatGPT. Suddenly AI is here.
My guess is that every single one of you has used a large language model like ChatGPT as a collaborator. Now I hope this isn't the case, but some of you may have used it as a stand-in for your own work. Please don't raise your hand if you've done this—we haven't given out the diplomas yet, and your professors are standing behind me.
Much of my time at WIRED the past few years has been spent talking to and writing about the people leading this field. Some refer to their efforts as creating 'the last invention.' They use that term because when AI reaches a certain point, supposedly computers will shove us humans aside and drive progress on their own. They refer to this as reaching artificial general intelligence, or AGI. That's the moment when AI will, in theory, perform any task a human can, but better.
So as you leave this institution for the real world, this moment of joy may well be mixed with anxiety. At the least, you may be worried that for the rest of your work life, you will not only be collaborating with AI but competing with it. Does that make your prospects bleak?
I say … no. In fact my mission today is to tell you that your education was not in vain. You do 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. It's a superpower, and every one of you has it in abundance.
Your humanity.
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. Economics. And there's even some English majors, like me.
Every one of those subjects involves examining and interpreting human behavior and human creativity with empathy that only humans can bring to the task. 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, that's why we call them the humanities .
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.
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. I once wrote a history of Google. Originally, its cofounder Larry Page resisted hiring anyone who did not have a computer science degree. But the company came to realize that it was losing out on talent it needed for communications, business strategy, management, marketing, and internal culture. 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. How would you feel if you read a novel that shifted the way you saw the world, heard a podcast that lifted your spirit, saw a movie that blew your mind, heard a piece of music that moved your soul, and only after you were inspired and transformed by it, learned that it was not created by a person, but a robot? You might feel cheated.
And that's more than a feeling. 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.
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 of continuing value. Especially if you perform it with the traits that make you unique: curiosity, compassion, and a sense of humor.
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. Can you say that with me?
I Am Human.
Congratulations, and go out and seize the world. It is still yours to conquer. And one final note—I did not use AI to write this speech. Thank you.
(You can see me deliver the speech here, in full academic regalia.)

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Why these actors and ‘SmartLess' podcast hosts want to help you pay less for cell service
Why these actors and ‘SmartLess' podcast hosts want to help you pay less for cell service

CNN

time16 minutes ago

  • CNN

Why these actors and ‘SmartLess' podcast hosts want to help you pay less for cell service

The latest celebrity start-up trend is no longer tequila. It's telecom. Actors Sean Hayes, Will Arnett and Jason Bateman — who host the popular 'SmartLess' podcast — are launching a wireless service as an alternative to pricier unlimited data plans from major carriers like Verizon, T-Mobile or AT&T. The decision to start the company, called SmartLess Mobile, came from a simple realization: while industry giants generally push unlimited plans, most people don't actually use that much data. Even if they're glued to their phones. 'Most Americans spend almost 90% of their time under Wi-Fi. Their mobile device very seldom actually uses the actual wireless network,' said SmartLess CEO Paul McAleese, a telecom industry veteran who co-founded the company with the actors. Research published last year by the consultancy group OpenSignal found that most mobile customers spend between 77% and 88% of their on-screen time connected to a Wi-Fi network. SmartLess Mobile offers wireless plans starting at $15 per month for 5 gigabytes of high-speed data, going up to $30 monthly for 30 gigabytes. By contrast, starter unlimited plans from the major carriers range from around $35 to $65 per month. McAleese said he and Arnett started discussing the idea after the actor bought a new phone for his teenage son and was sold an unlimited plan that cost around $70 monthly. (Arnett previously served as a spokesperson for Canadian telecom giant Shaw Communications; McAleese is the company's former president.) 'And (Arnett) goes, 'Geez, it's awfully expensive,'' McAleese said in an interview with CNN. 'And I said, 'Your boy spends almost his entire life under Wi-Fi. He's at home, he's at school … he's never going to be on the network. Why would you buy all that?'' SmartLess Mobile joins a growing slate of celebrity-backed wireless carriers, including Consumer Cellular, with longtime spokesperson Ted Danson, and Ryan Reynolds' Mint Mobile, which was acquired by T-Mobile in 2023. These providers, known as mobile virtual network operators (or MVNOs), lease access to a major telecom provider's spectrum — SmartLess plans will run on T-Mobile's 5G network — and can often charge lower prices because they don't have to manage the physical infrastructure. The services have gained popularity as cell phone technology has advanced. Most phones now have digital SIM cards, making it easier for consumers to switch carriers without having to visit a retail store. And the proliferation of Wi-Fi infrastructure everywhere from subways to restaurants means many people have lesser data needs. If their partner network goes down, MVNOs do risk being the ones customers blame for losing missing service. And limited data plans aren't necessarily for everyone — ride-share drivers and delivery couriers likely use a lot more data than people who work from home or from an office with a Wi-Fi network. But the primary 'uphill battle for any MVNO is to stand out in the space,' said Jeffrey Moore, principal at wireless industry research firm Wave7, because the industry giants have much more name recognition. Major carriers also entice customers with deals on new phones, which they practically give away for free if consumers join their network. Smaller carriers 'have to stand out either in terms of offerings or in terms of marketing,' Moore said. That's where celebrity endorsements come in. SmartLess already has a significant built-in audience; the podcast ranks among the top 20 most popular shows on Apple Podcasts. And Arnett, Hayes and the SmartLess podcast have more than 2 million combined Instagram followers. 'Whether by luck or by design, they also have a brand name that has both 'smart' and 'less' in the name,' McAleese said, 'which, if you're going to be a challenger brand in this day and age, those are two pretty good head starts.' The team plans to start discussing SmartLess Mobile on the podcast in the coming weeks, he said. And the SmartLess hosts' involvement in the new carrier goes beyond typical celebrity endorsements, McAleese said. Hayes, Arnett and Bateman had already turned down the opportunity to lend their names to other types of products, and they've been involved in everything from financing to marketing the new company. 'They rely on the category for what is now one of their primary professional pursuits, which is the podcast, this is how people consume their product,' McAleese said. 'These guys are master storytellers, and they have the brand ethos of sort of an honest broker. I think it's just a perfect marriage.'

AWS and national lab team up to deploy AI tools in pursuit of fusion energy
AWS and national lab team up to deploy AI tools in pursuit of fusion energy

Geek Wire

time22 minutes ago

  • Geek Wire

AWS and national lab team up to deploy AI tools in pursuit of fusion energy

Sustainability: News about the rapidly growing climate tech sector and other areas of innovation to protect our planet. SEE MORE Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility in Livermore, Calif. (LLNL Photo) Amazon Web Services is teaming up with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory — home to the world's only facility to achieve fusion ignition — to develop artificial intelligence tools to advance the lab's efforts, the two announced today. AWS and LLNL's National Ignition Facility are working together to build an AI-driven troubleshooting and reliability system, and have already deployed generative AI capabilities into the fusion lab's operations. The focus is on using AI to produce real-time solutions to anomalies that arise in the research and addressing increasing operational demands. More than two years ago, NIF reported that it had produced more energy from a fusion reaction than went into it, an accomplishment known as ignition. Since then, the facility has hit that mark seven additional times, most recently in April when it nearly tripled the amount of energy produced in December 2022. Researchers internationally are trying to recreate the fusion reactions that power the Sun — developing 'star in a jar' technologies that will allow humanity to produce nearly limitless clean energy on Earth. That power is increasingly in demand as data centers continue expanding and other sectors of the economy are electrifying their operations. In the new partnership with the federal lab, AWS's AI could help solve the very energy consumption problems it is helping to create. The National Ignition Facility has hit ignition eight times in fusion experiments conducted at LLNL. (LLNL Chart) 'I'm excited to unleash the superpower that is AI on NIF operations,' said Kim Budil, director of LLNL, in a statement. 'By leveraging our extensive historical data through advanced AI techniques, we're solving today's problems faster and paving the way for predictive maintenance and even more efficient operations in the future.' Last week, Washington state companies Helion Energy, Zap Energy and Avalanche Energy participated in a Seattle-area summit to share their progress in working towards commercialized fusion. In the past they celebrated NIF's experiments as a validation that their ambitions are possible. No other facility anywhere has demonstrated fusion ignition, and NIF's objective is strictly research, as opposed to building reactors to put power on the grid. One of the interesting applications being pursued at NIF is unleashing AI on more than 98,000 archived problem logs stretching back 22 years. The documents are a trove of lessons learned, including symptoms, causes and the steps taken to fix the problems. A release from the California-based national lab said the partnership could 'establish a new standard for AI application in high-stakes scientific facilities and may influence operational approaches at other national laboratories.' David Appel, vice president of U.S. Federal Sales at AWS, called LLNL 'an innovation and scientific powerhouse, and we're extraordinarily proud of our partnership together.'

The latest Android 16 QPR1 beta finally organizes Android's messy sound settings
The latest Android 16 QPR1 beta finally organizes Android's messy sound settings

Android Authority

time31 minutes ago

  • Android Authority

The latest Android 16 QPR1 beta finally organizes Android's messy sound settings

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority TL;DR Google is cleaning up Android's 'Sound & vibration' settings page in the upcoming Android 16 QPR1 update. Instead of one long list, the new layout groups settings into distinct categories like 'sound patterns' and 'Audio.' The volume sliders also get a modern design, while other options are relocated to make the page feel less cluttered. After more than 16 years of development, the Android OS is packed with features. If they weren't organized, navigating them would be a mess. For a long time, that's exactly what Android's sound settings page felt like, but Google is finally cleaning it up in the next quarterly release of Android 16. After installing Android 16 QPR1 Beta 2 on our Pixel device, we noticed that the Settings > Sound & vibration menu has received a major cleanup. Instead of presenting every setting in a single vertical list, the latest Android 16 QPR1 beta separates them by category. For instance, the 'phone ringtone,' 'default notification sound,' and 'default alarm sound' options are now grouped under a new 'sound patterns' section. Meanwhile, the 'Spatial Audio' and 'Media' items are under a new 'Audio' section. The five volume sliders remain at the top of the page, but they've been updated with the more modern Material 3 Expressive design seen in the volume panel. Furthermore, the 'audio will play on' entry no longer sits awkwardly between the media and call volume sliders but has been moved to the very top. Here's a gallery showing the Sound & Vibration settings page in Android 16 versus Android 16 QPR1 Beta 2: Sound & vibration settings in Android 16 QPR1 Beta 1 Sound & vibration settings in Android 16 QPR1 Beta 2 And if that's not enough to showcase the difference, here's a list that shows just how unorganized this page was before and after the update to Android 16 QPR1 Beta 2: Sound & Vibration settings in Android 16 Media volume Audio will play on Call volume Ring volume Notification volume Alarm volume Phone ringtone Live Caption Spatial audio Now Playing Media Vibration & haptics Default notification sound Default alarm sound Clear Calling Dial pad tones Screen locking sound Charging sounds and vibration Tap & click sounds Always show icon when in vibrate mode Sound & Vibration Settings in Android 16 QPR1 Beta 2 Volume Audio will play on Media volume Call volume Ring volume Notification volume Alarm volume Vibration & haptics Sound patterns Phone ringtone Default notification sound Default alarm sound Audio Spatial Audio Media System sounds & vibrations Dial pad tones Screen locking sound Charging sounds and vibration Tap & click sounds Always show icon when in vibrate mode Live Caption Adaptive Sound Now Playing Clear Calling I'm glad to see Google finally start to tidy up Android's sound settings in Android 16 QPR1. This is something I complained about back in 2023, as I noticed Google was reorganizing many other pages in the Settings app while leaving the Sound & vibration page untouched. The Material 3 Expressive redesign, which places menu items in separate cards, goes a long way in making the Settings app feel less cluttered. However, the Sound & vibration page previously undermined this by keeping all its options in one long, vertical list. While the new page still has too many settings under the 'system sounds & vibrations' section at the bottom, it's much better than before. Got a tip? Talk to us! Email our staff at Email our staff at news@ . You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it's your choice.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store