An examination of the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the humanities world is set to be a focus of a new Lake Forest College initiative.
Last month, LFC announced it received a $1.2 million grant from the Mellon Foundation for HUMAN (Human Understanding of the Machine-Assisted Nexus) in what will be a multi-year program focusing on AI and the study of humanities.
“We are thinking of this as a series of projects and courses that will help students engage in artificial intelligence through the humanities lens with a particular attention to ethics,” noted Davis Schneiderman, the executive director of LFC’s Krebs Center for the Humanities.
With the grant funding, Schneiderman said there would be 11 AI-related courses in the 2024-25 school year, with others planned for the future. Among the new courses will be Digital Dawn: Humanities, Cyberspace and the Rise of Artificial Intelligence.
Besides the courses, there will be research projects with students, seminars and publications.
“All of this is an attempt to get students who are going to be using this technology in their careers to be ready for the workforce or their post-graduate careers,” Schneiderman said.
Schneiderman, who has taught at LFC for more than 20 years, said the AI impact has already started.
“It is a transformative force in modern society, and it is affecting everything from job markets to social interactions,” he said. “We need a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach to consider the technical, ethical, social and economic dimensions.
“We don’t only want to leave the care and feeding of this technology simply to people who code for a living because they are not the only ones being impacted by it,” Schneiderman added.
A fellow partner in the program will be Ragdale, Lake Forest’s iconic retreat for artists.
“We are going to be housing and hosting multidisciplinary artists who would be getting time and space on artists that relate to the theme of the AI project,” Ragdale artistic director Regin Igloria said.
The project is set to run through 2027.