ChinAI #334: How AI is "Transforming" a Chinese University's Humanities Program
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Feature Translation: How a University is “Transforming” its Humanities and Social Sciences Program
Context: Much thanks to everyone who voted for last week’s Around the Horn choices. Usually, I can trust my readers to pick the most technical article, but I was pleasantly surprised your collective preference for the human interest angle. Told to 冷杉RECORD, sociology professor Qiaoqiao1 grapples with how her 211 university (~top 100 institution, not as good as the elite 985 universities) is dealing with the rise of AI. Here’s the lead-in to her reflections:
Qiaoqiao’s predicament is a microcosm of the current situation for humanities and social science teachers in universities. What we want to explore further is when this data has become the standard for measuring everything, how much space can be reserved for values that cannot be quantified—freedom of thought, humanistic concern, and critical thinking? In this crisis in the humanities, the real damage may not just be to a few individuals or a few majors, but rather that universities are losing their most precious function: cultivating independent thinkers.
Key Takeaways: AI is warping the current teaching assessment system for humanities and social science (wenke) professors at Qiaoqiao’s university.
Previously, a supervisor would conduct a classroom observation, but now: “There are cameras in the classrooms; every class is recorded and uploaded to the cloud. Supervisors can listen to the classes in real time online, without the teachers knowing. It was only after the semester ended that I learned that over 20 supervisors had once audited my online class.”
Starting this semester, AI tools are tracking her student engagement rates: “It can recognize surveillance footage and count how many students look up when you’re explaining a particular concept.” The lesson is disassembled into components that can be quantified: several minutes must be dedicated to a story-based introduction and several minutes to explaining key concepts.
Qiaoqiao and her colleagues complain that most supervisors have STEM backgrounds, so they don’t understand the teaching approach of the humanities and social sciences.
For example, in a course about research methods in which she discussed how to conduct fieldwork in villages, Qiaoqiao once received the following comment, “Too high and mighty, just talking about her research experience in class.”
Qiaoqiao recalls another case: “I mentioned choosing a field site in class and concluded with a reflection, ‘Sometimes where you choose to do your fieldwork is actually an arrangement of fate.’ The supervisor seized on this and wrote in their comments that I was promoting fatalism with students and that there were problems with my ideology. I was so angry I laughed.”
From the article: “In her view, university education should be the transmission of ‘Technique and Tao’—the former being methods and skills, the latter the wisdom to understand society and care for oneself and others. However, these elements, which cannot be simplified into key knowledge points, have lost their place in the new evaluation system.” Qiaoqiao muses, “Perhaps it’s because universities have become increasingly strict in controlling the content and ideas of teaching, so they don’t want teachers to have too much room for personal expression.”
Alongside the rise of AI, changes in the overall economic landscape have challenged many university humanities and social science programs.
Background context from the article: “Since this summer, at least five universities have suspended undergraduate admissions for sociology programs, and many more arts and humanities programs face the risk of closure.”
Qiaoqiao’s sociology program is still safe for now, but one of her primary tasks is “strictly controlling the rate of students changing majors.” She says, “The transfer rate of a class will affect the discipline evaluation and even determine whether the program can continue to exist. If our major is canceled, our jobs might be in jeopardy, or we might be reassigned to other colleges like Marxism or Public Administration, where survival would be even more difficult.”
Even as she realizes that the expansion of humanities enrollment may need to adjust based on market conditions, Qiaoqiao wants her students to have the space to read good books, find interesting questions, and seek meaning — to gain a “usefulness of uselessness” mindset.
She relays, “Sometimes I feel that universities don’t need to admit so many people to the humanities, nor do they need so many full-time researchers. There’s no need for everyone to crowd into one track, producing things that are meaningless to the world. The humanities need a freer space to cultivate true masters. But the current environment makes me feel that university humanities are becoming increasingly vulgar and narrow-minded.”
She concludes, “More importantly, when society is so technology-driven, and everyone adheres to a single evaluation system, there’s a need for some forces from the humanities to step forward and tell you that people shouldn’t live like this…I recall a few days ago, when I was talking to a STEM student about future retirement issues, he said, ‘Why are you so worried? Once we have robots, everything will be fine.’ In the eyes of a humanities student, this answer naturally needs to be questioned. Lately, for some reason, (Max) Weber’s quote keeps echoing in my mind: “specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart; this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of civilization never before achieved.” And the value of the humanities today lies precisely in helping us find our own soul and heart.
FULL TRANSLATION: How a University is “Transforming” its Humanities and Social Sciences Program
ChinAI Links (Four to Forward)
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Thank you for reading and engaging.
*These are Jeff Ding’s (sometimes) weekly translations of Chinese-language musings on AI and related topics. Jeff is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at George Washington University.
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Qiaoqiao is a pseudonym to protect the interviewee’s privacy.