SEOUL, October 20 (AJP) - Students in the humanities and social sciences do not need to abandon their majors to keep up with artificial intelligence, a senior data scientist at the credit bureau Experian told students at Kookmin University in Seoul earlier this month.
Han Sun-hyoung, a senior principal data scientist at Experian, called AI "work leverage" that builds on the expertise students already have. Han said it is not a threat that should push them into a different major.
Experian is one of the three major credit bureaus in the United States. These companies collect records of how consumers borrow and repay, and supply the credit scores lenders use to decide who gets a loan and at what rate. Han holds a doctorate from the University of California, San Diego, and has worked in AI, machine learning and data science for about two decades.
The lecture took place Oct. 7 at the university's Global Center. It was organized by Kookmin's Global Coexistence Project Group under HUSS, a Ministry of Education and National Research Foundation of Korea program that trains humanities and social science students to work across disciplines.
Students who pair the ability to define a problem with data and AI skills and business judgment can build new strengths that reach beyond the boundaries of their majors, Han said.
Han told the audience that in the age of AI, defining problems, critically checking what AI produces and turning those results into real decisions matter more than learning the technology itself. What global companies look for goes beyond specialist knowledge, Han said, to the ability to solve problems under uncertainty and work with experts from other fields.
Han opened with credit scoring, explaining how financial institutions draw on a wide range of data and machine learning to assess borrowers and how data-driven decisions have pushed innovation in finance.
Han also described the limits of those systems. AI algorithms have the potential to reduce human bias, Han said, but they can also reproduce the biases in the data they are trained on. For that reason, fairness, explainability and ethical judgment have to be weighed alongside accuracy.
Questions from students covered how AI will change jobs, how to choose a career path, whether humans should step in when an algorithm is biased, and how different roles work together at global companies.
"I had thought a lot about how to make use of AI beyond simply using it well, and it was good that the skills and activities I need were laid out specifically," one participating student said. An international student at the university said the lecture made clear what to prepare for a job search and would be a big help with career plans.
Ko Hye-seon, the research professor who planned the lecture, said she hoped students would treat the advance of AI "as a chance to widen their own possibilities rather than something to fear." She said the group plans to keep running programs that connect the voices of industry with education.
Kookmin's project group belongs to the HUSS Global Coexistence Consortium with Kwangwoon University, Sun Moon University, Yeungnam University and Honam University. The group runs courses, extracurricular programs and lectures by experts from South Korea and abroad, with the aim of training people who can lead a sustainable global society.
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