For years, it has been common knowledge that a humanities degree will screw you over. Compare, for instance, the median earnings of a Computer Science (CS) major from five years after graduating from Columbia University ($204,000) to that of an English major graduating from the same school ($74,000). Enrollment statistics paint a similar picture, with computer science undergraduate programs at four-year institutions reaching their “highest rate of growth” (11.6 percent) in the spring of 2023, suggesting that many students and parents still believe that a computer science degree is likely to guarantee job security. Indeed, among my own college consulting students, eight out of 27 students will choose to major in computer science this fall, nearly a third of all of my graduating seniors.
These numbers seem to tell a clear story: the CS degree holds more inherent value than any humanities degree. But it is unclear how much longer that may be the case.
It is no secret that the recent rise of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs) has thrown us all into a panic over job security. Take, for instance, the escalating tech layoffs of the past few years, with 2025 alone seeing over 22,000 workers lose their jobs over tech industry cuts. Employees are frustrated, with one Redditor going viral over claims that he was rejected from his job interview for refusing to use AI “as a crutch.” This interviewee’s experience is unsurprising to say the least: As we become increasingly reliant on AI, mastery of coding will become increasingly futile—unless, that is, you are an MIT prodigy who can still somehow outsmart AI—and even so, it is unclear how much longer an MIT graduate will hold an advantage over AI. Based on current trends in CS enrollment, it is likely that the tech industry will soon become oversaturated and that the CS degree will no longer hold the value and the prestige that it once enjoyed. After all, the nature of coding itself—logical, predictable, and repetitive—practically invites automation by AI.
But if the CS degree will no longer be the holy grail of all employment opportunities, what, then, is next for the job market?
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While several tech CEOs seem to believe in—and welcome—the nightmare of technological singularity, I am wary of such so-called “tech geniuses” who have never spent a day of their lives talking to real people or touching grass. Therefore, having studied the humanities my entire life—a field that is uniquely concerned with human nature—I am much more optimistic. AI might replace tech fields—it might even replace all fields that can be automated, mechanized, and systematized—but AI will never replace the humanities because the humanities, by definition, require a unique understanding of what it means to be fundamentally human.
While automated and technical jobs may go out of fashion, it is likely that roles that rely on human interaction are here to stay. A recent study predicts, for instance, that the most secure job over the next several years will be nursing—a finding consistent with my hypothesis that human-centric jobs will soon rise to the forefront. Nurses, after all, don’t just spit out information in the manner of an LLM—they also provide solace and empathy to ailing individuals, a human-centric function that no AI will ever be capable of.
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Similarly, the same study found that lawyers and therapists are also less likely to be at risk of losing their jobs to AI. What these roles have in common is not necessarily their delivery of information but the unique role that human empathy plays in their day-to-day lives. After all, ChatGPT can console a mental health patient all it wants with its sycophantic responses, but it will never replace the singular experience of hearing another human being tell you that everything is going to be okay. Human-centric roles provide ineffable value and are therefore immune to reproduction by machine learning forces. While a machine can learn facts, it can never recreate a human-to-human connection. That is where the humanities come in—the fields of knowledge that concern human understanding. As AI increasingly takes over rote tasks, novelists, psychologists, teachers, and historians—people who understand the past and forge a better future—will likely rise to the forefront of society.
In a world of hyperrationality and relentless progress, it might seem counterintuitive to gravitate towards the humanities, but as more machines learn to pass the Turing test, those of us who have a unique facet of humanity to showcase will become indispensable. In a world of artificial intelligence, emotional intelligence—a skill unique to the humanities fields—will prove most enduring. After all, the humanities enable us to sit with ambiguity, wrestle with moral dilemmas, and find meaning in a world increasingly cluttered with senseless noise. Humanities fields teach us not only how to write and argue but also how to observe the world around us—and how to make connections with other human beings. And in a culture inundated with information and automation, human connection is the rarest and most valuable currency of them all.
So, perhaps it’s time for students and educators alike to give humanities majors a chance—after all, in the age of technology and machines, we need people who understand people.
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