Choosing a College Major in the Age of AI: What Students Should Really Be Thinking About
A recent Fortune article featured comments from Daniela Amodei, cofounder and president of Anthropic, one of the companies at the forefront of building today’s most powerful AI systems. What she said stopped me.
She argued that studying the humanities may become more important in the age of AI, not less. For students who’ve spent months agonizing over whether their major is “AI-proof,” that might sound like wishful thinking from an academic. But this came from someone who runs a cutting-edge AI company. Her words: “The things that make us human will become much more important instead of much less important.”
I think that deserves a real conversation.
The question worth asking isn’t which major will protect me, but what can I do that AI genuinely can’t?
The question students are asking is the wrong one
When I talk to students about majors, the anxiety almost always comes down to some version of: What can I study that will keep me safe? It’s an understandable question. The world feels uncertain, and AI genuinely is changing what work looks like.
But here’s what Amodei also said: the number of jobs AI can do completely without humans is “vanishingly small.” The future isn’t humans replaced by AI — it’s humans working alongside AI. Which means the question worth asking isn’t which major will protect me, but what can I do that AI genuinely can’t?
The honest answer: judgment. Ethical reasoning. Empathy. The ability to read a room, navigate a conflict, build trust with a client, or write something that actually moves people. These aren’t soft skills. They’re the skills that have always separated good work from great work — and they’re becoming harder to automate, not easier.
Your major matters less than you think — and more than you think
Here’s something worth sitting with: Daniela Amodei studied literature. Not computer science. Not data science. Literature. And she now leads one of the most consequential technology companies in the world.
That’s not an argument that anyone should major in literature. It’s an argument that the skills underneath your major: how you think, how you communicate, how you approach problems you’ve never seen before, travel further than the credential itself.
When you’re choosing what to study, the more useful questions are: Does this field make me a sharper thinker? Will I graduate able to write clearly and speak with confidence? Does it challenge me to understand people who aren’t like me? Does it push me intellectually in ways that feel uncomfortable?
Those capacities don’t expire. They compound.
The students who will be most resilient are the ones who refuse to stay in a single lane — engineers who can write and persuade, data analysts who understand ethics and context, business majors who genuinely grapple with societal impact.
The humanities vs. STEM debate is a distraction
I want to be direct about something: this isn’t a case for the humanities over STEM, or for any field over another. The students who will be most resilient are the ones who refuse to stay in a single lane — engineers who can write and persuade, data analysts who understand ethics and context, business majors who genuinely grapple with societal impact.
The same goes for the trade school versus college question. Whether you’re studying nursing, welding, software engineering, or philosophy, the underlying question is the same: are you developing capabilities that are distinctly human? AI will keep changing the tools. It won’t change the need for people who can be trusted, who can lead, and who can think carefully under pressure.
What I'd actually ask before choosing a degree
Not will this major get me a job? — but:
What kinds of problems do I want to spend my time on? What environments bring out the best in me? What will I actually be able to do when I graduate, not just what credential will I hold? Am I building relationships and networks alongside skills?
The degree opens a door. What you do with it depends on who you become in the process of earning it.
The real risk isn't picking the wrong major
It’s avoiding the hard things. The writing. The public speaking. The group projects where you have to work through real disagreement. The internships and research and experiences outside the classroom that teach you who you are under pressure.
AI will keep getting better at executing tasks. It will keep improving at writing competent prose, analyzing data, and generating answers. What it won’t do is replace the person in the room who asks a better question, who knows when something feels off, who can sit with ambiguity and still move forward.
Choose a major you’ll actually engage with. Build curiosity, discipline, and the ability to communicate. Learn to work with people who think differently than you do. Do that, and you won’t be chasing the job market – you’ll be shaping it.
