At present, liberal arts education is experiencing unprecedented severe challenges. Under the impact of the AI ​​wave, the contradiction between the traditional liberal arts education system and social needs is becoming increasingly apparent, and liberal arts students are facing a series of problems such as insufficient digital literacy and a crisis of value cognition.

　　Recently, the Ministry of Education, the National Language Commission, and the Central Cyberspace Affairs Office issued the "Opinions on Strengthening the Construction of Digital Chinese and Promoting the Development of Language and Character Informatization", proposing to support the in-depth cross-integration and development of language disciplines and multidisciplinary institutions in higher education institutions, and strengthen the cultivation of "language + artificial intelligence" compound talents. This is one of the important measures to promote the integrated development of new liberal arts and artificial intelligence. In line with the intelligent era, what measures have been taken by liberal arts majors in universities in my country? How can liberal arts students improve their competitiveness while adhering to the humanistic spirit? To this end, a reporter from Science and Technology Daily interviewed relevant experts.

The picture shows the Digital Civilization and Smart Decision-making Laboratory of the University of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences holding a technical seminar on the construction of intelligent decision-making infrastructure.

Photo by Zhu Junxu

　　Integration with intelligent technology is an important trend

　　With the development of AI technology, liberal arts education is undergoing a profound transformation. This transformation is by no means a one-way integration of liberal arts and technology, but a two-way reconstruction of humanistic values ​​and digital civilization.

　　"The deep integration of liberal arts education and intelligent technology is an important trend in the future development of education." Li Zuowen, director of the Key Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence and Human Languages ​​of Beijing Foreign Studies University, said, "The solution of some scientific problems requires direct participation of different disciplines."

　　Li Zuowen took linguistics as an example and pointed out that in the context of the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, linguistics urgently needs to build an interdisciplinary research paradigm. "Traditional concepts classify linguistics as a humanities, but with the deepening of the research on the essence of language, we found that it has obvious computable characteristics, and it is necessary to use computing technology to achieve breakthroughs in research paradigms." Li Zuowen said.

　　The practical exploration of the Key Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence and Human Language of Beijing Foreign Studies University provides a vivid sample for the integrated development of liberal arts education and science and technology. The laboratory deeply integrates artificial intelligence technology with foreign language teaching, and has developed a multilingual intelligent learning platform in Beijing Foreign Studies University, a virtual simulated foreign language teaching system of "Inter-cultural Communication View" and so on. By integrating cultural anthropology, cognitive science and virtual reality technology, learners can complete cross-cultural communication training in digital systems.

　　In addition, research fields such as social sciences also need to use intelligent technology to achieve innovation in research paradigms. The Digital Civilization and Smart Decision-making Laboratory of the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences located on the West Fifth Ring Road in Beijing is exploring a new path to the deep integration of liberal arts and intelligent technology using "smart social sciences" as a breakthrough.

　　Zhang Runze, head of the laboratory's technical team, said that although general big models can generate a large amount of text, their results often lack depth and interpretation, and it is difficult to meet the professional accuracy requirements of social science research and strategic decision-making services. To this end, the team took a different approach and adopted an intelligent social science research method guided by social science theory and empirical knowledge and based on the generation of data by the agent, and innovatively launched the "Intelligent Social Science Research System (Proverbs Big Model)".

　　"We designed and developed the 'hybrid intelligence' model." Zhang Runze explained, "Through the research methods of intelligent social science, two mechanisms of multi-agent interdisciplinary collaboration and human-machine dynamic collaboration have been constructed." This model simulates the expert decision-making process and decomposes the tasks into planning, analysis, and computing links, allowing the agents of different disciplines and fields to collaborate and generate plans. Experts intervene in real-time key decision-making nodes to adjust in the interactive interface, and integrate their own professional judgments, and finally obtain more accurate and reliable analysis results after dual verification by human-computer.

　　During the interview, the reporter found that in addition to the above schools, many universities are exploring the path of integrated development of liberal arts education and intelligent technology. Nanjing University has opened classes such as the intersection of computer and financial engineering, the "Art and Cultural Creativity" liberal arts experimental class, and has created a new comprehensive innovative talent training model for liberal arts. Shandong University of Finance and Economics released the first domestic liberal arts education model "AI Talent", committed to solving the dilemma of new liberal arts construction. Huazhong University of Science and Technology proposed to implement the integrated development strategy of "new engineering + new liberal arts" and strive to create a new paradigm of "AI + cultural innovation".

　　Technology development cannot be separated from liberal arts talents

　　If AI is compared to alchemy furnace, knowledge is the "medicine material" thrown into the furnace. Liberal arts students are like medicinal collectors. With their own knowledge reserves and insights, they can identify and screen out high-quality "medicine material" from massive information to provide knowledge nourishment for the development of AI.

　　Liberal arts education not only cultivates students' humanistic literacy and aesthetic ability, but also helps them to form the ability to think independently and solve problems. By reading classic texts, participating in academic discussions, writing papers and other activities, students learn how to distinguish the authenticity of information, form their own judgments, and express their opinions rationally. This is of great significance to the future development of artificial intelligence.

　　At present, AI technology is developing at an accelerated pace, and the demand for interdisciplinary talents is becoming increasingly urgent. Faced with this situation, the Digital Civilization and Smart Decision-making Laboratory of the University of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences proposed the concept of "knowledge factory". As a platform connecting liberal arts students with artificial intelligence enterprises, the "Knowledge Factory" provides liberal arts students with opportunities to participate in the training and labeling of artificial intelligence models through project cooperation, practical training, etc., helping them accumulate practical experience and broaden employment options.

　　Zhang Runze said that the "knowledge factory" requires a large number of new talents to process knowledge for artificial intelligence, among which liberal arts talents are indispensable. Liberal arts talents have unique knowledge structure and thinking ability. They can quickly understand the principles and application scenarios of artificial intelligence technology and combine it with their own professional field knowledge. They can not only use critical thinking to optimize the application of technology, but also integrate humanistic care into the artificial intelligence development process. In the future, liberal arts talents will play a unique role in the "knowledge factory" to promote the mutual promotion and coordinated development of artificial intelligence and humanities and social sciences.

　　Digital skills will become a must-have weapon

　　Traditional liberal arts education focuses on cultivating students' critical thinking, humanistic literacy and communication skills, but often ignores the cultivation of digital skills. In the era of intelligence, AI may eliminate mechanical and boring "liberal arts labor", but will reward personalized, non-copy-paste humanistic creativity.

　　"Liberal arts students should pay special attention to cultivating cross-border technical literacy, mastering basic data analysis skills, learning the application logic of AI tools, innovating application scenarios, and mastering multimedia narrative skills, etc.," Li Zuowen suggested. In the human-machine collaboration educational environment, artificial intelligence generates content in the field of liberal arts education, which may have a disruptive impact on liberal arts education and even reshape liberal arts education. Liberal arts students will find it difficult to adapt to this change if they lack the necessary digital skills. Through continuous reform and training methods, liberal arts education can not only adapt to the needs of the intelligent era, but also become a bridge for dialogue between science and technology and humanities, and cultivate compound talents who understand technology and have a deep humanity.

　　Li Zuowen believes that nowadays, there are three particularly important points in the cultivation of digital skills for new liberal arts talents. First, reconstruct and innovate the course content, and embed interdisciplinary content such as cognitive science and artificial intelligence into traditional liberal arts courses. The second is to innovate research methods or learning methods, and make full use of technologies such as text mining, big data analysis, and natural language processing to study humanistic and social issues. The third is to establish an interdisciplinary cooperation platform to organize personnel from different disciplines by solving scientific problems, such as combining linguistics and natural language processing fields to study the problem of "language intelligence".

　　With the deepening development of the intelligent era, liberal arts education will continue to adapt to changes in social needs and cultivate more new talents that adapt to the needs of future social development. "Every technological revolution will bring pains of discipline adjustment, but the true liberal arts spirit - the questioning of human values ​​and the thinking on the evolution of civilization will never die." Li Zuowen pointed out that "the role of liberal arts talents in the development of human society is irreplaceable." (Reporter Zhou Qianying)

[Editor in charge: Zhu Jiaqi]