As China bets its future on AI by cutting arts degrees, Jensen Huang says parents shouldn’t worry about what their kids study

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang may have studied engineering, but he says it won’t matter what your child studies in the future. Huang said even in a world dominated by AI journalism, the arts, and design are still going to matter. Therefore, parents shouldn’t worry about pushing their kids into AI-focused careers. “I think that it won’t matter. All the things that used to matter are still things that are going to matter in the future,” he told Singapore’s Channel News Asia Monday. He noted that even with advanced AI, storytelling will be just as important, and young people should instead focus on how technology can enhance their area of study. “The only one thing that you have to do is to make sure that you ask yourself: ‘How can AI help elevate my learning, my craft, you know, my purpose,’” he told the broadcaster. Why is China eliminating arts degrees? Huang’s advice comes as China has taken the opposite stance, eliminating degrees that authorities claim are no longer justified in the AI era. One of the most prestigious schools in China for media and the arts, the Communication University of China in Beijing, last year cut five undergraduate degrees as it recalibrates its offerings for a new era. Several arts degrees were cut including photography, comics, visual communication design, new media art, and fashion design. They will no longer be offered as standalone programs, but will be integrated into broader, technology-infused disciplines, according to Sixth Tone, a China state media outlet. The university’s top official, Liao Xiangzhong, said these changes were made because advances in technology have made it so that offering these degrees as standalone programs no longer makes sense. For example, photography can’t be offered as a standalone degree because “today everyone can be a self-media creator and recorder,” Liao said. Instead, its curriculum was rolled into the “film and television photography and production” degree. Translation, another degree that w