We need more cross-disciplinary interaction than ever

• June 6, 2025
• shorts  
• AI  
• artificial intelligence  
• generative AI  
• education  

In this day and age, we need more cross-disciplinary interaction than ever, because technology has rapidly become everyone’s problem in a way it wasn’t before, and we all need to have common language to discuss what is happening.

I was listening to an English grad student talk about the environmental impact of “algorithms” during an academic panel today, and while I know that what he was talking about was really generative AI, technical people aren’t going to take you seriously if while critiquing them, you start conflating generative AI with algorithms in general.

I’ve always said that I find it incredibly frustrating and problematic that people in technical fields systematically devalues the humanities and refuse to engage in learning about society or culture or ethics or people.

However, I’m starting to think that the prevailing culture in the humanities, where most people have convinced themselves that understanding technical content is beyond their abilities, is equally problematic and counterproductive.

I’m not trying to suggest that everyone should be an expert in everything – obviously that’s completely impossible. However, I’m starting to believe that it’s important to know enough to be dangerous in at least one field that isn’t quite adjacent to your own.