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Tyron E. Byrd-Dubail

English w/ Conc. Nonfiction Writing, Southern New Hampshire University

ENG 123 Final Essay: Why it is Worth it to Obtain a Bachelors in English in 2023 Despite

Advancements in Computer Automation; Particularly Artificial Intelligence

Chvonne Parker

Feb. 2nd, 2023

Revised: Feb. 10th, 2023

2nd Revision: Feb. 11th, 2023

3rd Revision: Feb. 15th, 2023

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Currently, AI tools are being developed that will render half of the US workforce in

eminent risk of displacement over the coming decade. There are no regulations governing the

deployment of these tools and they are currently a dominant engine in job polarization and

market distribution. Historically, tasks that have been liquidated via automation do not become

economically or professionally viable in a broad-spectrum sense again, and there will be

increasing singularities that render enormous segments of profession obsolete in the near and

intermediate future. The jobs that remain or emerge will require currently nascent digital skill

sets that can be acquired with adequately developed critical thinking and research skills

Adaptation will be necessary.

English, a degree that sometimes attracts disparaging comments, particularly in a world

post-death-of-print-media, is sometimes seen as a ‘soft’ topic and accused of being too general or

lacking in directly monetizable skills. English degrees strongly develop research skills, critical

thinking, reason, and the ability to articulate greater sequences of ideas. As the future requires

increasingly newer digital skills, individuals with a high capacity for reason, something

developed over the course of an English degree, will be poised for professional success over the

maturation of their career.

Why it is worth it to study a Bachelor’s Degree in English in 2023: With projections

unanimously forecasting increasing displacement risk due to Artificial Intelligence across most

fields, a bachelor’s degree in English can provide one with the modal skill-sets and critical

thinking abilities required to survive automation through the fourth industrial revolution.

Within the next ten years, nearly half of the United States workforce is predicted to be at

extreme risk of displacement due to computer-based automation, especially AI automation.

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Displacement risk is the risk that an employer eliminates a position in the chain of jobs it takes to

create a product, perform a task, or issue a service. According to CB Frey in The Future of

Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerization, “47% of the jobs are in the high

probability category of automation, with 70% or more of automation risk.”

So far, there exists no federal legislation in the United States regulating either the

employment of machine labor or protecting human labor. According to Sarah Glazer in The

Future of Artificial Intelligence, this is unlikely to happen due to concerns of impacting national

security, losing rank in the world hegemony, and diminishing future economic growth. “While

most industries have to follow federal regulations to ensure their products are safe and work as

intended, the field of AI is “a bit like the Wild West,” said Margaret Mitchell, researcher and

chief ethics scientist at Hugging Face, a company and open source platform that provides tools

for machine learning — a form of AI that focuses on the use of data and algorithms to imitate the

way that humans learn.8 … although bills have been introduced in Congress to prevent

algorithmic bias, improve the transparency of algorithms and protect consumers’ personal data

and privacy, so far no federal legislation has passed. Advocates and experts say this is largely

because AI technology is new and rapidly changing. In addition, business interests, such as the

U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have criticized regulatory efforts, calling them burdensome for

small and medium-sized businesses.9 … “I don't think the Republicans or Democrats really want

algorithmic regulatory bills to pass, as they don't want to choke the golden goose,” says

Aaronson of George Washington University. “These companies are essential to U.S. national

security and economic growth (Glazer, S. 2022).”

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As computer driven automation increases, there will be a decrease in available wages and

occupational employment at the individual level while larger companies are able to generate

more revenue with less employees. In their paper Can digital skill protect against job

displacement risk caused by artificial intelligence? Empirical evidence from 701 detailed

occupations, Ni Chen, Zhi Li, and Bo Tang (Chen Et Al.), researchers at the School of Public

Policy and Administration (Chongqing University, Chonqing, China) posit that “… literature

suggests that the technological changes by AI promote economic productivity at the

macroeconomic level in the long run, while reducing wages and employment at the individual

level in the short run…results highlight three main points that (1) the displacement risk by

artificial intelligence has significantly negative effects on occupational wage and employment,

(2) the heterogeneous effects across occupational characteristics are significant… The estimated

results suggest that a 1% increase in displacement risk was associated with a 0.22% decrease in

occupational wage or a 0.55% decrease in occupational employment. These results also mean

that the higher the displacement risk of occupation, the lower the occupational wage and

employment.”

As more jobs are automated by AI, polarization impacting the median between the

extremely highly skilled and highly paid (e.g. Doctors, Developers, Machine Language

Specialists, Astrophysicists) and the low skilled and low paid (unskilled manual labor, food

service, distribution) will widen, creating further employment disparity as there are fewer skilled

positions to occupy in the workforce and the pay of those positions diminishes. It should be

noted that this doesn’t impact just singular professions, but the entire production chain in-

between professions performing a service or creating a product, eliminating the jobs in the

middle that used to require technical skill and intellectual ability, leaving two stratified poles
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where at the bottom end there is no demand for skilled labor, only repetitive, unskilled tasks that

anybody can do, and the tasks that require intense, prolonged specialization. Formerly engaging

tasks will decrease in number of processes, eventually simplifying recursively, creating lesser

paid and increasingly mundane work. In the article Can Digital Skill protect against job

displacement… [sic.], Chen et. Al. write, “according to Dauth et al. [11], the use of robots

altered Germany’s employment structure and shrank employment opportunities in the

manufacturing industry, while employment increased in the service industry … Autor et al. [9]

investigated routine-biased technological changes (RBTC) and classified the tasks into two

dimensions: cognitive vs. mental and routine vs. non-routine, to estimate displacement risk

(Chen et al., 2022). Eventually as more and more tasks inbetween are consumed, singularity

happens, and all possible meaningful input between purely a derived action and the machine

language specialists who create an AI disappears, leaving no meaningful work to be performed.

Chess offers an insight into this process. The first chess playing machine was created in

192 by Charles Hooper. It presented a finite endgame where the human player was given a single

King, and the machine had a King and a Rook. Through these limitations, a finite number of

mechanical functions is presented and Charles Hooper built a Boolean operated mechanical

computer. In 1948, Norbert Weiner, in his book Cybernetics, describes how a chess program

could theoretically be developed using evaluation functions. In 1951, Alan Turing, of wartime

computing fame, published (on paper) the first chess program which he named Turochamp.

From 1952 to 1978, algorithms for playing chess are theorized, written, and implemented;

frequently consulting chess grandmasters and world champions like David Levy, who had bet in

1968 that in no chess program would be able to beat him within ten years, which he won in 1978
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after defeating Chess 4.7 in a six game match, 4.5/1.5. That game was the first time that in any

round, a computer bested a human grandmaster (Cambell, 2019).

By December of 2006, humans had effectively been cut out of the chess playing process

(at a level of developing chess playing theory) when the world champion, Vladamir Kramnik

was defeated by Deep Fritz 2-4. This would herald a close to the prior sequence of human world

champions beating AI (1996 Kasperov v. Deep Blue 4-2), then drawing with AI (1997 Deeper

Blue technically beat Kasparov 3.5-2.5, 2002 Kramnik v Deep Fritz 4-4, 2003 Kasporov v. Deep

Junior 3-3, 2003 Kasparov v X3D Fritz 2-2), and would be the last time that a human player

playing without AI assistance had any ability to stand a chance versus AI. In 2017, the first

neural network powered chess program, DeepMind, was released, the which fundamentally

taught itself to play chess after being provided just the rules and move-set with no human theory

intervening. Playing against the formerly most powerful chess engine, Stockfish, it defeated

Stockfish 28 times and tied another 72 games without a single defeat. This marked the transition

into the current phase where the only advancement of chess theory happens inside of neural

networks teaching themselves how to play chess better than other neural networks, completely

invalidating human input to play chess for anything other a few machine language specialists and

moving pieces on a physical board to represent board state to observers. This is a phenomenon

called singularity. Chess is not a fiscal driver but offers insight into the sequence of identifying a

problem to be solved, advancement of theory, devotion of capital resources, interim

advancements and resultant development of AI post singularity. This suggests intriguing

consequences for the future (Cambell, 2019).

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In Artificial Intelligence and Employment, a Systematic Review, authors Rafael de

Acypreste and Edemilson Paraná conducted a study summarizing and comparing the most

important literature and papers in the field of artificial intelligence between October 2008 and

October 2020, seeking to create a cartography of expertise, attitudes, trends, and research that

gives an overview of the current topography of artificial intelligence. They found that “The main

hypothesis was that the demand and supply of skills had a central role in the growth of wage

inequality, reducing the jobs and wage share of the median group (Autor, Katz and Kearney,

2008). This occurred because such technologies complement occupations with high skills,

replace medium-skilled laborers that perform routine tasks, and have little effect on low-skilled

employees (Good and Manning, 2007; Good, Manning and Salomons, 2009; Michaels, Natraj

and Van-Reenen, 2010). Michaels, Natraj, and Reenen (2010) have found evidence of a

“polarization” in the United States, Japan, and nine European countries. Good and Manning

(2007) have tested a similar hypothesis exclusively to Great Britain.” Repeatedly, it is

demonstrated across multiple countries and fields that there is worldwide risk of displacement

due to present and future deployment of AI tools. On the subject of DALL-E, an image

generation AI created by OpenAI (the same creators as ChatGPT) “Los Angeles-based digital

artist Don Allen Stevenson III told the Financial Times, “Artists have to get themselves into a

position (Glazer, S. 2022) where they can change and adapt or else they're going to go extinct.”

What will be of greater value in the coming years, according to Chen et. Al is, “Digital

skills resulted from digital literacy, which was considered to appropriately understand and use

various digital sources as the modern occupational skills [12]. Deursen and Van Dijk [13]

proposed various concepts to account for medium-related content-related skills, comprising

operational, formal, information, communication, content creation and strategic skills [14]. In
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line with such concepts [15], the ability to develop and use information and communication

technologies (ICT) is determined by electronically enabled information and the ability to

synthesize information into practical and relevant knowledge… Past research has explored the

impact of new digital technologies on occupations outcomes such as wages and unemployment

[20, 21]. Most considered AI the main factor for labor market distribution and polarization [22–

24]. The wage difference between high-skilled and low-skilled laborers continues to widen as

manifested in the continuous tilt of income distribution to the group of highly educated and

skilled laborers…. Additionally, digital skills appear to improve the individual’s labor market

opportunities, while 14.5% of workers with higher digital skills are changing jobs more often

than 10.3% of those with fewer digital competences,” (Chen et al., 2022)

Bachelor’s Degrees in English do not directly offer digital competencies, but hone the

skills of graduates in communications, analysis, articulation, discourse, interpretation,

interpolation, and extrapolation. These are all skills required to develop digital competencies,

and allow you to develop digital competencies with increasing rapidity. More importantly, in a

world of diminishing purpose, English Majors will be capable of synthesizing personal meaning,

beauty, elegance, imagination, and purpose to context. Offering a holistic approach to education,

English majors are more strongly inter-disciplinal than other fields, with transferable skills that

are not contextually dependent on a static substrate of tools, knowledge, routines, or process.

Lacking a specific industry for the employment of majors in English, such individuals are

provided with a generalist skillset that is flexible, adaptable, and creates a more sandbox

approach to life than one that is on rails.

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Imagining a world where half of jobs have just been or will be automated and everyone

displaced is forced to figure out reclassification, people with disciplined research skills who can

gauge adequately where professions are being automated and by what mechanisms, will be better

positioned to plan and react strategically, diversifying their skillset into emergent digital skill

sets, a benefit of having a discipline rooted in the humanities, such as English, rather than routine

or processes, which are more readily automated.

By having a broadened perspective of the world, the reticulate properties of nodal

intersectionality, reciprocal relationships, and strong analytical skills, English Majors may have

better median occupation prospects than many other fields in such as Entertainment, Graphic

Design, Business and Financial Operations, Computer and Mathematical, Entertainment, or

Healthcare; as increasing numbers of processes are automated. According to Chen et al. “The

influence of displacement risk on occupational wage and employment were significant in the

occupations categories including Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media, Business and

Financial Operations, Computer and Mathematical, Construction and Extraction, Educational

Instruction and Library, Food Preparation and Serving Related, Healthcare Practitioners and

Technical, Installation, Maintenance, and Repair.” (Chen et al.)

As this polarization impacts people with median skills, much of the criticism of studying

for a degree in English is negated as people who studied in wrote administrative, technical, or

computational process derived skills will be readily replaced with computerized automation,

whether in the form of neural networks, AI, or simple software. With other traditional arguments

against pursuing an English degree being (incorrectly) rooted in the perceived greater economic

viability of other skills, the diminishing of available perceived economically viable skills will
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manifest greater value to the holistic qualities generated by an English degree, both financially in

the professional sphere and intra-personally in the private sphere. People with a degree in

English, already accustomed to shifting modal occupational prospects, are better casted to pivot

into emergent disciplines than people with process-based skillsets in an environment where there

is repeated elimination of single industry employment, providing built in resilience to

automation.

As tools are aggregated that make further automation increasingly simple and requiring

less technical skill, eliminating the barrier to entry to such tools, people with a discipline in

English will be better positioned to adapt, as their skillset in communication grows more relevant

due to the increasing need to articulate problems, solutions, and how to implement them; as

natural language AI tools grow in dominancy, requiring new machine language sympathy skills

that are more readily acquired in individuals studied in communications focused disciplines.

In conclusion, despite the commonly distributed-without-solicitation criticism of the

choice to pursue a degree anywhere in the humanities, and more specifically, in English; it is

entirely worth it to study a Bachelor’s in English in 2023. The developed empirical and

quantitative reasoning techniques are highly modal and provide flexible, broad-spectrum

skillsets. The jobs of most of the people casting such criticism will be automated just as, if not

more ruthlessly anyways, and people with holistic and versatile skillsets will be better positioned

to adapt both professionally and (even more importantly) personally, having the ability to create

renewed meaning for themselves across multiple reclassifications as the world begins to slip

across the event horizon into the turbulence of the fourth industrial revolution.
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Bibliography:

Glazer, S. (n.d.). http://library.cqpress.com/. CQ Press Library. Retrieved February 3,

2023, from https://library-cqpress-com.ezproxy.snhu.edu/cqresearcher/document.php?

id=cqresrre2022112500&type=hitlist&num=0

B;, C. N. L. Z. T. (n.d.). Can digital skill protect against job displacement risk caused by

artificial intelligence? empirical evidence from 701 detailed occupations. PloS one. Retrieved

February 3, 2023, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36346798/

Acypreste, R., & Paraná, E. (n.d.). Artificial Intelligence and employment: a

systematic review. . EBSCO. Retrieved February 3, 2023, from https://web-s-ebscohost-

com.ezproxy.snhu.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ

%3D%3D

Cambell, M. (2019, February 4). The History of Computer Chess: An AI perspective.

YouTube. Retrieved February 19, 2023, from https://youtu.be/AvU_fnLWRRk