{"id":267111,"date":"2026-06-08T04:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/08\/opinion-as-ai-upends-humanity-we-must-focus-on-what-makes-us-human\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T04:55:43","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T08:55:43","slug":"opinion-as-ai-upends-humanity-we-must-focus-on-what-makes-us-human","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/08\/opinion-as-ai-upends-humanity-we-must-focus-on-what-makes-us-human\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion | As AI upends humanity, we must focus on what makes us human"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opinion | As AI upends humanity, we must focus on what makes us human<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/opinion\/world-opinion\/article\/3355710\/ai-upends-humanity-we-must-focus-what-makes-us-human<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-06-08 04:30:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.scmp.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we graduate, what can we do?\u201d As a philosophy professor, questions like this \u2013 about employability \u2013 often crop up in my conversations with students. Indeed, with youth unemployment on the Chinese mainland standing at almost 17 per cent,<\/span> and intense competition among those seeking employment, it is no wonder that the priority for many \u2013 even students graduating from elite universities \u2013 is actually securing a job.<\/p>\n

The proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) has only compounded such concerns \u2013 not only in China. A Stanford paper published last year found a 16 per cent relative decline in entry-level employment among AI-exposed occupations in the United States since 2022, while employment in experienced roles has remained stable.<\/p>\n

Such changes have understandably precipitated public angst. During a recent commencement speech at the University of Arizona, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was met with boos as he praised AI\u2019s transformative impact. And a Chinese court recently ruled that it is illegal for firms to lay off employees<\/span> on the grounds that an AI replacement would be cheaper, although enforcement is another question.<\/p>\n

In the hypercompetitive job market, with AI misinformation and the technology\u2019s incorporation into multiple areas \u2013 from military decisions to financial analysis \u2013 it is tempting to conclude that educators must prioritise science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects and machine learning to equip students with the necessary knowledge and literacy for their future.<\/p>\n

Yet a singular fixation on STEM is wrong. In an era of accelerated technological progress and adoption, the lines dividing what humans and AI can do are increasingly blurred. To thrive, we must go back to the basics of what makes us unique as humans, as opposed to machines that perform tasks.<\/p>\n

This is where the humanities come in \u2013 from classics and history to languages and literature, from sociology and anthropology to philosophy.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Opinion | As AI upends humanity, we must focus on what makes us human https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/opinion\/world-opinion\/article\/3355710\/ai-upends-humanity-we-must-focus-what-makes-us-human…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":267112,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.i-scmp.com\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/og_image_scmp_opinion\/public\/d8\/images\/canvas\/2026\/06\/08\/9b3d1da0-6b57-47cd-8bac-2fcacb19cfbc_ef26b6ef.jpg?itok=XIFdPYim&v=1780884805","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-267111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267111"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267111"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":267113,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267111\/revisions\/267113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}