The Humanities Can't Save Big Tech From Itself

The problem with tech, many declare, is its quantitative inclination, its "hard" math deployed in the softer human world. Tech is Mark Zuckerberg: all turning pretty girls into numbers and raving about the social wonders of the metaverse while so awkward in every human interaction that he is instantly memed. The human world contains Zuck, but it is also everything he fails at so spectacularly. That failure, the lack of social and ethical chops, is one many believe he shares with the industry with which he is so associated. And so, because Big Tech is failing at understanding humans, we often hear that its workforce simply needs to employ more people who do understand.