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I have a PhD in the humanities, have taught at the college level, published work of interest to no one outside of a small group of specialists, and am a professional software engineer (concealing my field and CV because my story is unusual and I like privacy). I wouldn't identify the tech world with intellectual work. I mean, setting up a lemonade stand is arguably intellectual work if we use the term in a broad enough sense. By intellectual work, I mean (and most people here mean, I think) that which has no clear or intended use other than to explore, master, discover, learn -- pure research, study, teaching -- or isn't justified by real-world, practical "usefulness." I tend to share just about all of Jaron Lanier's views on the tech world you're describing -- critical of free and open culture, unimpressed by and dismissive of LLMs and "AI," hostile to social media, and overwhelmingly disappointed. Intellectual, academic, edifying work continues, entirely separately, to be worthwhile. I don't ask what number theory does for humanity, because I don't expect or need it to be useful in any popularly "practical" sense, any more than I expect a poem to be. |