It had been nearly 20 years since Prof. Kenneth Warren last delivered the Aims of Education address to new University of Chicago undergraduates.
And while the world has changed greatly for an incoming College student, especially with the rise of AI, Warren reminded the Class of 2030 of what hasn’t: the need to think deeply and reckon with the world around them.
“The time of education, if it is to be worthwhile even in the time of AI, should remain what it always has been at its best,” said Warren, the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor of English and Literature, “namely, a time for human thought—a time for thinking hard about and producing words about the world with all of its complexities, difficulties and inhumanities, with the understanding that, for the time being, you can feel OK only thinking about it.”
Capping off Orientation Week activities for new students, Warren spoke on Sept. 24 in Rockefeller Memorial Chapel as one of a handful of UChicago faculty members to deliver the Aims address twice since the tradition began in 1961.
“I knew there could be no question of merely reiterating what I had said on that earlier occasion,” he said. “You are not the same group I addressed in 2007 at the beginning of their time here. You, unlike your predecessors, are the first class at this University to commence their time of undergraduate education fully within what we call the time of AI.”
Seeing the big picture
Warren knows a thing or two about human thought. The associate director of the Department of English in the College, he has authored and edited several publications focusing on American and African American literature from the late 19th through the middle of the 20th century.
Warren explored both sides of the AI conversation. He noted that these tools can quickly complete what once seemed like immeasurable tasks.
“The time of AI is a time when it appears to be possible to do things that we once had to learn how to do without having to learn how to do them,” Warren said, though he noted there is a cost that comes with that convenience. Speaking on the brevity of AI summaries, Warren turned to the words of E.B. White in the book Elements of Style in which White writes that every word should “tell” in a sentence.
“One would not have reduced reading time by reading a summary,” Warren said, “because if every word of a piece of writing ‘tells,’ to leave out words would be to misread what you purport to be reading.”
He likened this to “only seeing part of a drawing” or “trying to make a machine go after having left out a few bolts.” If the reader were to save time, Warren added, they would only have done so “by accepting less of what was on offer.”
The value of thinking
Aside from whatever other dangers AI could pose in the future, Warren said the rise of such machines only increased the importance of human thought.
“Our thinking, which is human thinking, takes place in a world among other people who think and it unfolds among a lot of things that don’t think, but that, to quote [philosopher Simon Critchley and poet Wallace Stevens], ‘simply are,’” Warren said.
To him, that means our thoughts can simply exist without action and “can leave the things it thinks about alone.” AI can’t do this though and that the only way we know as humans that AI is working is “to see it doing something to the world.”
Warren said that AI has already ushered in extraordinary achievements and explained that his comments weren’t entirely meant to be a warning—but rather more of a way to put the students’ upcoming four years at UChicago in a different light.
As overwhelming as the changing world might seem, he said the students could understand everything if they just slow down and think.
“Maybe read a poem or two and then send an email to a friend, or hell, send one to me, describing what you make of it,” Warren said. “And then when, ultimately, you get around to doing what it is you feel you need to do, you will at least have thought about something first.”
—This article originally appeared on the College website.
