Reed Hastings says AI will drive a return to humanities: ‘I’d be doubling down on emotional skills’

Reed Hastings, cofounder, former CEO, and now chairman of the board at Netflix, studied AI and computer science back in the 1980s. Decades later, he thinks today’s AI revolution could bring back an emphasis on the humanities as a field of study.

After graduating with a degree in math from Maine’s Bowdoin College, Hastings pursued a Master of Science degree in computer science and artificial intelligence at Stanford. The earlier AI revolution he was a part of didn’t pan out, but the current AI wave shows signs of completely upheaving the labor force as we know it, and it may even transform education, he said on an episode of the Possible podcast last week. 

Hastings chose STEM for his own graduate degree, but he said AI will shift what universities prioritize in the future. 

“STEM practically took over Stanford University,” said Hastings. “Now maybe what we’ll see is a rotation, you know, back to the humanities and to understanding [the] combination of history and literature.

“If I had a 3-year-old today, I would be doubling down on the emotional skills,” he added.

Hastings’s comments come as AI has upe...