Notebooklm’s editor-in-chief told BI that humanities skills gain value with AI. Stephen Johnson says the new “AI Wrangler” role requires knowledge of the model and knowledge of what they can do. He said philosophical and psychological skills are increasingly important.
Traditionally, humanities degrees have not been translated into technology work, but that may change in the age of AI.
In an interview with Business Insider, Steven Johnson co-founded several startups and worked as an author before becoming editorial director for Google Labs’ NotebookLM, and the humanities may be making a comeback.
Johnson, who helps build Google’s AI-driven notes and research tools notebook lum, said there is a “revenge of the humanities” in an age of large-scale language models. Not only are the main English majors valuable, but philosophical and psychological skills useful.
“There’s a series of questions about AI that no one thought of, until about two years ago, except for philosophers,” Johnson added, “those types of philosophical skills are really important.”
Johnson said fine-tuning the model’s tone and conversation mode is a “big part” of the product. He pointed to Amanda Addel, a philosopher who works as a tuning and fine-tuning researcher for humanity as an example of someone who “trains” AI models.
In an interview posted to YouTube by Anthropic in June, Adkell said that philosophy doesn’t always line up with every aspect of her work, but she finds Claude’s character construction to be “philosophically rich.” She said that AI models must ask complicated questions such as moral considerations and what human principles should be trained.
“Many people said, ‘Look, I told you the degree would help you,'” Adkell said in response to a question about whether training AI models would be strange.
Google and humanity are not the only companies that recognize the value of Google and humanity. The founder of an AI startup told BI they were looking for it, and people with liberal arts backgrounds strongly understand “a creative, human-centered approach” and how AI can be applied in the field.
The role of “ai wrangler”
When he started with Google Labs, Johnson initially helped create prompts for AI models. As the AI boom took off, the role of rapid engineers likewise attracted the attention of other English majors interested in AI.
Johnson said the prompts change, especially as AI models improve with prompt rewriting, but a new role he called “AI Wrangler” emerged.
“It’s probably the next step for a quick engineer,” Johnson said.
Johnson describes the role of AI Wrangler as not necessarily requiring coding expertise, but includes in-depth knowledge of modern models and their capabilities.
For example, if someone wants to use AI to create a 30-second animated video, Johnson said, AI Wrangler knows the best tool for that task and how to use it. He said the role requires “a certain level of technical refinement,” but does not need to know how to program it.
Johnson said one of the most important skills to learn now is the flow of modern models and their features.
“It’s just a versatile skill that’s actually valuable in every industry,” Johnson said.
Technical skills will not disappear
There may be an increasing need for humanities skills that help construct how models interact, but that does not mean that technical skills are no longer worth or need. People from humanities backgrounds may need to improve their skills in the technical field to open opportunities for themselves in the field.
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After studying journalism and starting a career in filmmaking, Google AI sales leaders eventually joined the tech giants in the media, entertainment and gaming divisions of AI sales. However, he told BI that he must obtain technical certification and go his own way in engineering roles before taking on the role of AI leadership.
Johnson, the published author of 14 books, came to Google with a strong understanding of technology, selling startups, writing extensively on the subject.
“If you’re going to try out API calls on a bunch of these models, you probably need more technical skills,” Johnson said.
