Foredrag: ”Artificial Intelligence and the Future of the Humanities”

At some point in the not-too-distant past, artificial intelligence (AI) was the exclusive domain of computer scientists and science fiction authors. That all changed in late 2023 when the world was suddenly made aware of ChatGPT. This user-friendly system seemed to demonstrate for the first time something resembling human intelligence. It could hold coherent conversations, write stories on demand, and effortlessly perform a whole range of tasks. Ever since, popular discourse has been aflame with speculation that AI is going to take our jobs and those from the humanities are first in line. For those of us who work with natural language processing (NLP), this technological breakthrough was not a surprise but simply the logical continuation of the last decade of research. For those of us who work in cognitive science, the idea that these systems are intelligent is simply untrue. But should those of us in the humanities really be afraid? In this talk, I summarize current state-of-the art in so-called generative AI, showing where the strengths and limitations of these technologies actually lies. Drawing on my experiences as an NLP engineer, a cognitive scientist, and a humanities scholar, I will argue for what I consider to be the continuing relevance of the humanities in the brave new world of artificial intelligence.