Seminar by Prof. Rohan D'Souza

15 November 2024

Start

November 15, 2024 - 3:30 pm

End

November 15, 2024 - 5:00 pm

Address

Joan Robinson Hall   View map

Topic: In the age of Artificial Intelligence and powerful Internet Search Engines do we still need PhDs in the Social Sciences and the Humanities?

 

 

Abstract

These may be the early days for Artificial Intelligence (AI), but already there is more than talk about job losses, deep structural changes in the service sector industry and decision-making increasingly tasked to intelligent machines. In other words, the digital now dominates the analogue in profound and decisive ways. Would it, therefore, only be correct to also conclude that our current ‘education architecture’ might no longer enable us to address the challenges emerging from what Erik Bynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee refer to as the ‘Second Machine Age’ . In such a fast changing social and intellectual world, is the PhD in the social science and the Humanities, in particular, outdated as a research and learning output. Should the idea of the public research university still be rescued ? My talk will take up these questions and debate whether the PhD in the social sciences and the humanities can still remain relevant ?

 

Rohan D’Souza is Professor at the Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies (Kyoto University).

He is the author of Drowned and Dammed: Colonial Capitalism and Flood control in Eastern India (2006) and has written widely on environmental history, history of technology and politics in the Anthropocene. In recent years, he has shifted his attention to higher education and the problems of learning brought on by digital technology. He has also been a regular contributor to several popular online magazines and newspapers in India.