What (and Why) I’m Reading
I’m several chapters into a new book by MIT professor Eric So titled The Collision: What AI Does to Us. I picked it up in part to learn more about a phenomenon I am increasingly thinking about: AI-induced cognitive atrophy. There is mounting evidence that offloading cognitive tasks to AI can make us less able to independently perform those tasks; the less we exercise mental muscles, the more likely we are to weaken or lose them. While troubling for adults, this is particularly problematic for young people who are still building their ability to think critically, synthesize information, see connections, develop judgment, write cogently, and even assess the output of an AI system.
I also came across a recent article in The Wall Street Journal provocatively titled “The Brutal Harvard Class that Suddenly Everyone Wants to Take.” It profiles Harvard’s Humanities 10 course – an application-only class taught by a rotating group of professors whose students read one book per week and write intensively. Authors range from Homer and Plato to James Joyce and Toni Morrison. According to the article, the wait list for the course is evidence of students’ desire to engage deeply with challenging, long texts in a technology-free environment – pushing back against the forces pulling in the opposite direction.
I believe that those who say that AI is an inevitable part of our children’s futures are right. In nearly every recent conversation I’ve had with a BUA graduate about their jobs, they tell me about the pressure they feel to use AI tools to increase their productivity and impact. I also believe AI can be a force for good. We have graduates who are harnessing AI to develop new cancer therapies, detect heart disease early, and improve mental health. As a school, we embrace our responsibility to educate students about the technology and consider how AI might enhance what we do in the classroom.
That said, I also believe that the most important thing we can do is make sure that, in these critical developmental years, we live up to our mission’s promise that students at BUA “are challenged to read deeply and think critically.” We rightly insist that students across disciplines do the hard intellectual work themselves and build the capacity to do so, rather than offloading that work to AI. BUA was once lovingly referred to as “a young school that reads old books.” We still proudly ask students to read many of the same texts those Humanities 10 undergraduates are lining up to read. The skills and habits they gain by doing so will be even more critical for our future workforce and citizenry. And I know from my own experience what those students in Humanities 10 are telling us: engaging with great works, complex ideas, and beautiful writing is a source of sustaining joy.