Liberal Arts majors! The tech world needs you!!
This week, I had the great fortune to meet Microsoft President and General Counsel Brad Smith at Live Talks Los Angeles. If you live in the Southern California region, I highly recommend attending a session Live Talk, they have some great speakers coming up. As a Microsoft employee, I hear from Brad Smith quite often during our internal all-hands meetings. He is an intelligent and humble man, and is someone who genuinely cares about how Microsoft’s technology is used. In his new book ‘Tools and Weapons‘ he discusses some major themes around cybersecurity and regulation within the technology industry. He discusses a world in which, the subtitle of his book states, carries ‘The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age’.
Brad was interviewed by the journalist David Kirkpatrick and author of another great book the Facebook Effect, a MUST READ for those of us using the social media giant. David did an excellent job of asking the tough but poignant questions for the audience. One set of thoughts from Brad really caught my ear, quite possibly because I identified with them, and to be quite honest, feel a little vindicated because of them. To summarize here is what Brad Smith shared with the audience
AI (Artificial Intelligence) is the technology that is going to change the world
We need to deal with the ethical implications that this technology brings
The technology industry needs employees with a Liberal Arts background who are heavily vested in technology!!!
That last statement had me jumping for joy and here is why: I have a degree in Graphic Design!!!!!
I will admit, I sometimes question my place working for Microsoft, a company I never thought I’d work for due to my incorrect view that you had to be a computer science genius. Also, due to the fact that my colleagues are absolutely brilliant, which made that statement seem ever so true!!! Well, my professor from Loyola Marymount was right when he told me so long ago that attending a Liberal Arts college is going to instill the valuable skills of critical thinking and knowing how to research.
According to Brad Smith, to paraphrase, its not going to be enough for people to just know and create technology, they are also going to have to think about the ethical implications of what they are creating and how to harness it for the good of society.
So I never want to hear someone tell me “I can’t work for Microsoft, I’m not smart enough or I don’t have a computer science degree”, a couple of phrases I hear too often. Instead, i want all the Liberal Arts majors to UNITE AND BE BOLD!!! WHY??? Because the future of the world DEPENDS ON US!!!
(Forgive me I have a big imagination but here it goes)
Liberal Arts majors! We must prevent SKYNET from taking over the world!!!
