As the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences marks its 75th anniversary, Dean Agustín Rayo discusses why the need for developing students with broad minds and human understanding is as urgent as ever, given pressing challenges in the midst of a new technological revolution.

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MIT SHASS Dean Agustín Rayo discusses the school's 75th anniversary and argues that the AI era demands stronger integration of humanities, arts, and social sciences into technical education — not just curriculum updates. He contends that critical thinking, moral judgment, communication, and understanding of human complexity are precisely the skills AI cannot replace, and that these disciplines strengthen rather than dilute MIT's technical mission. New initiatives include the MIT Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC), shared faculty positions with the Schwarzman College of Computing, a Music Technology and Computation Graduate Program, and new ethics-focused computing courses through SERC.

Q&A: MIT SHASS and the future of education in the age of AI