Fuzzy logic for the liberal arts

Scott Hartley makes the case that it's those people who have college degrees in the humanities are the ones who have created the most successful, creative business ideas in recent times

The Fuzzy and the Techie: Why the Liberal Arts Will Rule the Digital World

Scott Hartley

India Portfolio

320 pages; Rs 599

At one level, this book will bring immediate relief to two groups of people that I can think of. One, parents of school-going children who wonder what future lies ahead for their children who show no liking for maths. The other are people who work in non-computer science-oriented professions like journalism law, and medicine, who wonder when the next algorithm will take away their jobs.

At this level, Scott Hartley, the author, makes the case that its those people who have college degrees in the humanities (literature, social sciences, law, history and so on) are the ones who have created the most successful and creative business ideas in recent times and are at the centre of developing innovations in government and education. He uses two terms he learnt as a student at Stanford University: “Fuzzy” to categorise graduates in the humanities and the term “Techie” for graduates in science and technology and engineering. He points out that when he was Stanford, the widely held belief that there was nothing much would come about such humanities graduates -- the big prizes of our era, the top paid and coveted jobs would all go to the “techies” and the “fuzzies” would end up with crumbs, the boring, low-paid jobs that nobody else wanted.

Having been born and brought up in small town India (Cannanore, present population >50,000) and in a middle class family (father and maternal grandfather were doctors) I am well acquainted with the point of view that if you want any worthwhile career you better be a topper in maths and science. In school, if I ever came home with a maths exam score of less than 90 per cent, my mother would look closely at me and say, “What happened, baby, did you have a stomach upset that day with the breakfast I gave you?”

If anything, the din about mathematics (and its contemporary playground, computer science), being the key to mankind’s future, is louder than ever before. Unfortunately, of late, most of the examples highlighted in the media are the negative ones: Mathematical models (algorithms) are believed to behind persuading Americans to vote for Donald Trump (the implication being that without the work of these wicked algorithms and the wicked people earning fortunes by using them, America could not possibly have voted for Mr Trump). The din about “Artificial Intelligence”, computer programs that are cleverer than human intelligence, powering devices that will make lawyers and doctors, let alone journalist and teachers, jobless is also at a new high.

As I said, at one level, this book serves to reassure people that all is not lost for the “Fuzzies”. It provides many examples to demonstrate that it is not just the bigness of the data that counts or the power of the computer programs used to manipulate this data but the creative human mind that must check for biases in the data. Mr Hartley quotes the example (well known in data science circles) about very sophisticated algorithms that are used in the United States to predict which location the next drug-related crime would occur, which has resulted in African Americans being likely to be arrested 3.73 times more than white Americans for marijuana possession, even though the use of marijuana is roughly the same in both groups. Such biases, he points out, can be part of self-fulfilling prophecies because the more police officers are sent to African American neighbourhoods, the more crimes there that they will detect which will lead the algorithm to make even more predictions for crime in these neighbourhoods. 
 

The only real protection against such things are people who think beyond algorithms and bring into play human values like equality of all humans.

The author quotes research from the US National Bureau of Economic Research to assert something I used to hear often in the 1970s and 1980s in India but not that often nowadays: That jobs that require “soft skills”, the skill for good interpersonal interaction, are likely to grow at a faster pace than jobs that require mere science, technology and mathematical skills. In India, the practical application of the soft skill theory was to hire people who could speak English with the right accent, hold a whiskey glass correctly, and with an elite school background. Such companies came to be classed in the pejorative, “boxwallah” companies. So, in Indian liberal circles, the word “soft skills” has come to be viewed with a tinge of suspicion.

The larger point that the author makes perhaps is this. If you are a carpenter, true success will not mean merely being adept how to use the chisel, the saw, the screw driver and the hammer but in thinking through and making the right kind of furniture -- the kind that will be aesthetic as well as meeting market demand.