OpenAI's release of its artificial intelligence model GPT-6 Astra early this month has prompted assessments that the era of artificial general intelligence, or AGI, has arrived. The shift has raised concerns that a considerable number of jobs will be replaced by AI while human dependence on the technology deepens further. Ahn Ji-hyun, dean of Seoul National University's College of Humanities, said the change makes the case for the humanities stronger, not weaker. "The more we live in an age where AI produces answers in seconds, the more important the ability to judge for ourselves becomes," the dean said.
Speaking in an interview with The Seoul Economic Daily at the College of Humanities in Seoul's Gwanak district on the 18th, the dean said, "Precisely because information has become so easy to access, we need the capacity to read properly and think critically." On arguments that the role of universities must be redefined in the age of AI, the dean said, "A university should not be a place that simply turns out technicians. It should be a place that asks why."
Above all, the dean believes that as AI advances, the role of the humanities — which deal with fundamental questions about human beings and society — grows rather than shrinks. "People trained in philosophical thinking can join AI companies and serve as a check on the effects of technological development, advising them on how to protect human agency," the dean said. The dean also attributes the 15.44-to-1 competition ratio recorded by SNU's philosophy department in early admissions for the 2027 academic year to this same view of the humanities' role in the AI era. Indeed, AI companies have been actively recruiting people with philosophy backgrounds this year, with Google DeepMind hiring Cambridge University professor Henry Shevlin under the title of philosopher.
Elected as the 25th dean of the College of Humanities and confirmed for a second term in July, the dean now devotes considerable time to research on how AI should be used. Concern about AI dependence runs deep among humanities faculty, given that reading papers and writing form a major pillar of their courses. One experiment conducted at the college illustrates the problem starkly. "When we asked undergraduates to write a two-page response to a novel, there was almost no difference in quality between a piece produced with AI in one minute and one written over 10 hours after actually reading the book," the dean said. "In the end, the age of AI requires making good use of prompts while also building the muscle to think, so that students develop a competitive edge of their own."
Since last year, the dean has held six brown-bag sessions with faculty members to discuss teaching methods for the AI era. "We need analog education — things like reading a book slowly from beginning to end," the dean said. "Students should get used to the process of reading and thinking for themselves, rather than consuming information as if swallowing it whole."
To share that concern more widely, the dean plans to run an AI Seowon project — named after the seowon, the Confucian academies of Korea's Joseon Dynasty — with the College of Engineering over the next year. Faculty from the two colleges will debate topics such as grading writing assignments in the age of AI and develop joint research projects and course content. "Engineering tends to place weight on what final product you produce, whereas the humanities tend to see the process of getting to that result as what matters," the dean said. "The idea is to have professors with different perspectives think together about where education should go in the AI era."
The college is also aiming to launch a Humanities AI Center next semester. Through the center, it plans to conduct research on AI ethics, develop AI-based teaching methods, and provide related consulting and advisory services to faculty.
Expanding a scholarship program introduced last year is another of the dean's main priorities. The college overhauled its previous system of semester-by-semester support to create the Next-Generation Humanities Scholar Integrated Scholarship, which last year began covering tuition and living expenses for doctoral students for two to four years. "In Korea, the livelihoods of humanities graduate students are not adequately guaranteed, so talent inevitably flows out to overseas universities that provide scholarships and living expenses," the dean said. "If we want to raise the next generation of humanities scholars, we first have to build a foundation where doctoral students can focus on research without financial hardship." The dean added, "In an era that demands constant proof of the usefulness of the humanities, I want to establish the college's identity and broaden the scope of our teaching and research into areas such as medical humanities and environmental humanities."
