An Educated Guest S3E27 | From IBM to Colby College: Why David Watts is Leading the AI Revolution in the Liberal Arts
Is a liberal arts degree actually the secret weapon in the age of AI?
On this episode of An Educated Guest, Todd Zipper sits down with Dr. David Watts, the Director of the Davis Institute for Artificial Intelligence at Colby College. David recently made headlines by leaving a top executive role at IBM to lead this initiative at a small liberal arts college.
They discuss why the future of the workforce demands more than just technical skills and why "interdisciplinary" thinking is the new currency. David opens up about the challenge of "cognitive offboarding"—the risk that students might outsource their critical thinking to algorithms—and how higher education must pivot to prevent it.
In this episode, we cover:
- Why "entry-level" jobs are disappearing (or at least, changing forever).
- How to teach AI ethics without it feeling like a "compliance checkbox."
- The surprising intersection of AI, philosophy, and the arts.
- How faculty are moving from grading "outputs" to grading "process."
To learn more about the Davis Institute, visit the Colby College website.