Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Could studying Art help save your job from robots?

Posted by Christine Weber

In a short piece titled, “Going to Art School could help save your job from Robots“, ArtNet associate editor Sarah Cascone notes that students are often turned away from the Arts, and I would add other Humanities disciplines, because of the perception that it is difficult to find jobs in those fields. Cascone proposes that as computerization begins to threaten more jobs, individuals with strong creative, interactive and collaborative skills that cannot be replicated by machines, will be in high demand.

Cascone cites a variety of sources, including a study quoted by Ellen Egley at the STEM Jobs project, showing that 72% of U.S. employers consider creativity to be the most important factor when hiring. In her article, “What is STEAM?“, Egley goes on to argue that the popular acronym STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) should be changed to STEAM, to include Art.

Cascone also quotes Artificial Intelligence expert Kai-Fu Lee, who argues that it might be a good idea right now to study fields where it’s hard to find a job. Those might be the fields of the future. According to Lee, “Art and beauty is very hard to replicate with A.I. Given [that] A.I. is more objective, analytical, [and] data driven, maybe it’s time for some of us to switch to the humanities, liberal arts, and beauty.” Read his argument in “Your Art Degree Might Save You From Automation” published in Quartz, an online magazine.

Want to learn more?

Check out the +STEAM club at Sylvania. [Scroll down to the bottom of the list.]

• The Fab Lab at Cascade
• The Interactivity Lab at Cascade
• The Maker Lab at Sylvania
• The STEAM Lab at Rock Creek
• The STEM Center at SE Campus

Also check out the STEAM site created by the program at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) which first championed the STEAM instead of STEM movement.